Estranged
by Kount Xero
Summary: It's six months after the defeat of Ultimecia, and the Fated Children are slowly drifting apart. Relationships are ending, love is turning into hatred... they survived the sorceress, but will they survive each other, or themselves, for that matter? (I suck at summaries. Mainly Squall/Selphie.)(M for swearing and something else.)(Part 1/7 of a series.See profile for details.)
1. Prologue

"_**Estranged"**_

* * *

_Author's note: "Estranged", named quite randomly after that Ambeon song, is a long-time idea finally finding its place: how do a group of people, banded together by a high-stress situation (e.g. saving the world) cope with their happy ending, especially if their lives were centered around that situation? What you also probably will notice is that this did, in fact, start up as a shipping fic, but after a certain point (I call it Chapter 5) it evolved into something different altogether.  
_

* * *

**Prologue**

The sky, grey and monotone above, appeared as a visual reflection of the ambient hum of silence, heavy and droning underneath all the other, smaller sounds. Even his uneven footfalls, echoing with the crunch of the gravel under his boots, seemed to blend in.

Rinoa's warm body was pressed against his, her shoulders offering him whatever fragile support they could. Not that he could protest. He didn't mind at all. He barely felt her presence.

Everything around them registered in his head as afterthoughts. Irvine, sitting on an overturned, crumbling column, smoking. The flowers, some bent, some broken, but all around, bursting through the cracks in the stone below and spreading out. Bleeding through the cracks. He moved, not feeling the movement and witnessing his surroundings shift, as if he was just sieving through the world, in perpetual motion but perfectly still.

The elongated scratch of the gunblade being dragged along; its tip, the blunt side, sliding on the stone.

They went in through the non-existent door, the threshold just an ominous reminder of what once was inside. He shrugged her off. That was enough. She could help him out there, where he wouldn't mind her. But in here, in this place, he wouldn't have it. He knew what her face must have looked like, confusion and annoyance rolled into a singular contortion of features. He didn't care.

Hyne, he just wanted to fucking sleep.

In the orphanage, the smell of dust and moss and wet stone reminded him of some random night in the rain, where he had promised himself he'd be okay. He'd be okay without her. Except, he never had been. He had never been okay. He had been too afraid.

Later. Dwell later. Sleep now.

Zell, sitting on the steps. Edea by his side, one hand over his shoulder. Hushed voices making words he couldn't care for. He passed by them, hand still around the handle of his weapon. Clang. Clang. Clang. Three steps and then, that dragging sound, following him all the way across the familiar path of his room.

The distance was a lot shorter than he remembered. But, then again, he was a lot taller than he remembered. It all evened out.

There was a door, hanging off of rusty hinges. He pushed it. It swung and crashed against the wall – it used to do that. He lifted one arm to stop it's back-swing.

There, the bed. Dirty sheets, the quilt torn and possibly moth-eaten, but there was a mattress and a pillow, and that was all he needed.

The gunblade crashed onto the ground. Squall climbed into the bed. He pulled the covers halfway, and closed his eyes. One thought.

_I'm done._


	2. The Grind

"_**Estranged"**_

**1. The Grind**

**[SIX MONTHS LATER]**

**1**

Squall took in the view of the ocean stretching out in all directions, seemingly into infinity. It was a thought threatening and serene at the same time, moving him closer to and away from the comfort he sought. He sighed. This was the exact same thing he came to this balcony to avoid, and it seemed that all he wanted to do was to return to it.

He leaned against the railing, content in his loneliness as he seldom was. He could feel the grind in his mind, the grind of thoughts pushing forward their clenched-teeth, white-knuckle-tight agenda, their compulsive projection. It mirrored yet another grind, of him grinding it out, grinding on.

It had been six months since the end of Ultimecia and the celebration of their victory. An endless parade of presentation of honors, medals, speeches, cocktails, booze, long nights that had followed a battle he had no intention of visiting. They were all on mild mood stabilizers ever since, their bodies being managed for the inevitable settling in of trauma and depression.

It had been a month since he had first felt a crack in his relationship to Rinoa. The very texture of what he thought he had, someone to share himself with, seeming perfect, now seemed to be slowly unraveling. It hadn't been anything specific, or anything at all.

The wine. It had been the wine.

**2**

"_Squall?"_

"_Yes?"_

"_You wanna go for a bottle of wine and a quiet night in?"_

_He looked up from the documents on his lap. He looked at her, standing there, wearing one of his t-shirts, grey, and waiting for an answer to a very simple, very irrelevant, and very small question. Did he, indeed, want to go for a bottle of wine and a quiet night in?_

_No, he thought, that's not the question. That's not the question at all._

_He, in turn, found himself waiting for the answer to a very complicated, very relevant, and very big question._

_The question is, he thought, what the hell are you doing in my room, in my life?_

**3**

Squall thought that in the one month interim between this little ritualistic contemplation and his complicated, relevant, big question, he had mastered going through the motions. It wasn't very complicated. Walk here, joke there, breakfast, lunch, dinner, nights in, nights out, hell, even sex once or twice or four or six times, two of which while utterly and shamelessly drunk.

He had felt, during every move, the grind of it all – things grinding slowly to a halt, grinding on in strife against the grain, grinding down his supposed contentment. And there he was, grinding it out.

Squall didn't know how much more he could take it.

But that wasn't just it, that was never just it. Before the wine, there had been something else. This time, it had been the words.

**4**

"_Selphie?"_

_The petite brunette went visibly rigid. Squall couldn't blame her for her surprise – the small crevice behind the Quad, after all, wasn't known by many. It was a leftover of their battle with Galbadia Garden, a hole big enough for someone of her size to fit inside (he himself could sit in it, but couldn't disappear due to the radius of the opening.)_

_She looked up, both hands hastily brushing against her eyes, and Squall saw that she had been crying. His turn to turn rigid. Human emotion, especially sadness, he had no idea how to handle. He didn't quite know his way around feelings at all._

_And besides, this was Selphie._

"_H-hey there, General." Selphie said, flashing him the same fake smile he often used, the very same one that Rinoa had informed him, rather bluntly, wasn't fooling anyone, "What's up?"_

_Something pushed him to choose not to act like he was just passing by. The same thing drove him to speak, and so be it, but what would he say?_

_C'mon, he told himself, you're supposed to be good at improvising during missions. This is the same ballpark. Think of this as reconnaissance – you have to learn what's making her sad. Having cleared that primary objective, you can move on to your secondary objective of doing something about it. Failing the primary isn't an automatic fail condition for the secondary objective._

_Go._

**5**

"_Nothing." He said, "I was just passing by. What's wrong?"_

"_Whuh?" Selphie sniffed, "What do you mean?"_

_Evasion. Counter-maneuver: change angle of approach. Be less intrusive._

"_I mean, I didn't expect to find you here, much less crying."_

"_I wasn't-"_

_Aggressive thrust forward. Take a jab._

"_You can't con a con artist, Selphie. _I _use that same smile on people every day."_

_Selphie glared at him for a second, and Squall witnessed the smile draining from her face, to make way for an expression that Squall had seen only once before. It looked more unsuited for her face now than then._

_It looked so... wrong._

_He sat down in front of her, and cradled his chin in one hand._

_One move left. Now, how did it go, what did the others always say? Ah, yes. They all said:_

"_Want to tell me about it?"_

_Selphie's expression shifted to an almost painful (for him) kind disbelief. It wasn't her disbelief itself that hurt him, but how shocked she was that he would say that._

"_Wow, Squall... seriously. Wow. I never thought I'd see the day I'd hear you say that. You don't have a fever or anything, right?"_

_She leaned forward and put one hand against his forehead. Her fingers were cold, her touch light._

"_You seem to be okay." She said._

"_So, my request is valid. Talk."_

_That same look of disbelief, lighter this time. Less painful._

**6**

Squall found it sort of funny in a very humorless way that after the time and energy Rinoa had angled towards teaching him to hold a conversation for no other reason than holding a conversation, it had taken only Selphie, bright and bubbly Selphie, who wore the fake smile eerily naturally, to teach him.

It was funny, yeah, and sort of pathetic how easy it had been, in the end.

**7**

"_It's nothing earth-shattering." Selphie said, "If anything, it's really fucking stupid. It's stupid and shallow and... you know. Selfish. This is selfish, this whole thing is."_

_Quistis would know what to say, he thought. Best imitate others now that I'm in the secondary objective._

"_Never mind that. Tell me what it is."_

"_Irvine called yesterday. Said he wasn't going to do the long-distance thing."_

_Squall bit his tongue on the basic reality that teaching marksmanship in Galbadia Garden as a decorated veteran and a war hero probably gave Irvine enough credibility to spend on women._

"_Get it?" Selphie said, "Not couldn't. _Wasn't._ Said he thought it was a waste of time at this juncture. He said that, he said at this juncture. Said he'd send back some of my stuff that he'd kept, and hoped to see me around."_

"_That's..." channel Rinoa now, she's good with this, "I'm sorry, Selphie. Sorry it didn't work out."_

"_You can stop that, you know." Selphie said._

_Play the fool. Do the Zell._

"_What? Stop what?"_

"_Squall, you're jumping from impersonation to impersonation. These aren't your words."_

"_I just-"_

_She smiled, an honest, genuine smile this time. Squall felt his lips move and mirror that expression, which elicited a small laughter from her._

**8**

The memory of this moment played back in his mind once more, giving him another, this time simpler, yet sill relevant and considerable question: had that been it? Had that been the split-second instant where everything had shifted? Had that been the beginning of the grind?

The answer was simple. It hadn't been the wine or the words.

It had been honesty.

**9**

"_Was that a smile? Did Squall I'm-Fucking-Impenetrable Leonhart just smile?"_

"_You can talk."_

"_I feel like I witnessed a second Lunar Cry, seriously."_

"_I guess..."_

"_By the way, and this is related to why I was... you know..."_

"_Yeah?"_

"_I need a favor. An administrative favor."_

_Squall contemplated the request._

"_Trabia doesn't want you?"_

_Again, the disbelief, but this time, not very noticeable._

"_H-How did you know?"_

"_You've been here a few weeks longer than you should have been. Anyway. I can secure you an instructor position. Nobody will object to a veteran automatically becoming an instructor. Any branch in mind?"_

"_Field Magic." Selphie said, "If beggars can really be choosers."_

"_I'll get it through to Xu tomorrow, get you on the roster. What did Trabia say, exactly?"_

"_That the graveyard they were building would be named after me, and that was all they cared for me." Selphie said, "Direct quote." She sighed, "Trabia was my home, Squall. The only proper home I've known, and they think I failed them... maybe I did. Shit, I _know _I did. The Missile Base – if I had gotten there sooner..."_

"_You can't change the past." Squall said, "Ellone learned it the hard way, and as she was learning, she taught us that lesson. I thought you had learned it too."_

"_I still want to." Selphie said, her expression sinking, "I still want to. It just got... a bit overwhelming, I guess."_

"_I know the feeling."_

"_...yeah."_

"_But would it be so bad if you stayed here?" he asked._

**10**

Squall's hindsight told him that the expression that overwhelmed Selphie to the point where she had the look of absolute gratitude on her face. Of course, at the time, he had had trouble deciphering exactly what the hell that had been.

So there he was, stuck on that moment of honesty, wondering, would it be so bad if she stayed? Would it be so bad if she, the other she, didn't?

Would it be so bad..?

"Not that I mind sharing," Selphie's voice came from behind him, "But a girl's gotta have her own contemplation space."


	3. The Favor

"_**Estranged"**_

**2. The Favor**

**1**

Selphie walked up to Squall's side and leaned against the railing. The ambiguity of the distance, as it often did, calmed her instantly. The horizon wasn't exactly a meeting point for the sky and the ocean, it sort of blended both until it wasn't clear where one ended and the other began. It submerged her mind into a sense of ambiguity in itself, and she lost track of where her thoughts began and where her notions ended.

Of course, there was always the reality of Squall Leonhart to consider that helped her ignore herself for a while. That was the thing of it – you couldn't just ignore Squall Leonhart. He wouldn't say much, if anything, but his silence was large enough for him to occupy a sizeable chunk of your awareness. Selphie wondered, briefly, if it was just her, but dismissed it. He probably had that effect on everyone.

Selphie looked at him and smiled.

"So, what are we gonna do?" she asked.

**2**

_Selphie smiled, half amazed that he of all people could achieve that with just a simple sentence. Would it be so bad, she wondered, if she stayed? If she made Balamb Garden a home, a proper home? Would it be so bad if Irvine had really walked out?_

_Would it be so bad to have room for someone else?_

_But, Selphie thought, that isn't the question. There is a simple, relevant but huge question that goes deeper than it first appears._

"_So, what are we gonna do?"_

**3**

Selphie unbuttoned the jacket of her SeeD uniform and slipped it off, wanting to catch the breeze, and as if on cue, it engulfed her, making her shiver in delight. She slung her jacket on her shoulder and returned to staring at Squall for an answer.

"As in?" Squall asked.

"It's not a shocker that you know all the spots in the Garden that people can go when they need to brood. But people do need to be alone sometimes."

"I wasn't-"

"Or mope. Or sulk. Or dwell. Or cope."

"I was just-"

"Wait." Beat, "I think I ran out, yeah. I'll go with brooding."

"Selphie, I wasn't brooding."

"What was it you said..? Can't con a con artist..? Yeah. That."

Selphie smiled even wider at his scowl. Meant she'd won, and she liked it. She chuckled, feeling almost giddy at the prospect of pushing her way through once again.

"So, what's on the agenda, General?"

"The agenda..?"

"What's on your mind?"

**4**

"_Nothing, really."_

_Confusion set in almost immediately. How would that help?_

"_What?"_

"_I'll handle the administrative side. You'll just get settled in and start preparing a few syllabi samples for your proposed class, because while I can just sign off on anything you give to me, I do need something legitimate to pass through peer reviews."_

"_I don't-"_

"_It'll give you something to do. Take your mind off things. Distraction can be beneficial in letting the mind rest on other matters."_

"_Okay, who the hell are you and what have you done to Squall?"_

_His total confusion was priceless._

"_What?"_

"_You're actually pretty good at this stuff, y'know?"_

"_It's from the _Biblis Tactica_." Squall said._

**5**

"Nothing, really."

Selphie rose an eyebrow.

"I love nothings. Gimme one."

"It's not important."

"Ha! So it _is_ something, just not important."

"It's irrelevant."

"No fair!" Selphie brought out the pout she had mastered, "You heard me talk. Now it's my turn to hear you. Gimme my time of day! C'mon, I'm a good listener."

Selphie saw him size her up. She saw him teeter on the edge of speaking. He huffed exasperatedly, and she smiled inside, knowing she'd won. It wasn't about bringing him discomfort or irritating him, of course – it was about repaying him for getting her somewhat back on track.

"It's pointless to argue a point against a party who cares only about winning the argument as soon as possible – the best course of action would be to let them believe they have it and be content in knowing that they are thinking what you want them to think." Squall said.

"That's from Sir Laguna's chapter on diplomacy." Selphie said, "But the _Biblis Tactica_ won't save you here, sir."

"It's Rinoa." Squall said, looking away, "Things were... on a track, I suppose. Going somewhere in their own pace. There was –is- a routine in place, and it is –was- functioning. She's here and she's not going anywhere, at least I don't think so... I hope not... whatever."

"All of that seems kinda good."

"But lately I've been feeling this... this _grind_. Like everything is dragging on. Longer than they should, longer than they were ever supposed to."

Selphie watched in awe as he looked at her and told her, in one, honest expression. She shook, almost physically, from seeing it written all over his face.

"I feel like I'm done and I just don't know how to face that."

**6**

_Selphie wriggled out of the crevice, and Squall helped her stand. She stuck her hands in her pants' pockets. Squall did the same. They lingered for a moment, as if unsure what to do, and then started to walk out to the Quad._

"_Squall?" Selphie said._

"_Hm?"_

"_Don't tell the others about this. Please?"_

"_I wasn't going to."_

_Her hand, quite smaller than his, slipped around his arm and she locked it in place._

**7**

Selphie sighed. She knew the way out of this, she had advised many friends with the same problem with this piece of wisdom, to very different results in each one. She thought that the point of the advice was to set things in motion and create a result, not a good or bad one but a result.

In that moment, she felt a small pinching in her chest, a shallow kind of pricking, not sharp enough to hurt, but enough to discomfort her. What was it..? Later, she figured, when she found her own brooding spot.

"You're not gonna like this at all, but there is a way to get through it." She said, instead.

"Which is?"

"Talk to her. Tell her."

"I'm not sure that's the best way."

"No, trust me on this – the only way to get through it is to get it out into the open. Think Triple Triad – the Open rule is Hyne."

**8**

_Their stroll, arm-in-arm, took them back to the center of the Garden, and from there on out, to one of the benches by the fountain. Squall sat down, dragging her along, and she happily obliged. It felt nice, his closeness, his presence. She couldn't read his stone face, it was too cold to read._

_It was different, she felt, from Irvine, or anyone else. He had never been an open person, not even enough to be deceitful. This lack of transparency carried a certain perk: she couldn't doubt, no matter how cynical she tried to be, his honesty._

_If the Open rule was Hyne, Squall, whenever he chose, could be so much more than the strong god._

_But it wasn't his openness that, in that moment, comforted her. It was his silence, and she welcomed it - welcomed being able to exist without words._


	4. The Dream is Over

"_**Estranged"**_

**3. The Dream is Over**

**1**

As she walked by the entranceway of the dormitories, Selphie started to distinguish a pattern of movement. Towards what, she didn't know, but there was an inclination of cadets towards moving, fast as they could, into the dormitories while muttering half-baked ideas to each other. First the couple practically running hand-in-hand, then a few more, then a trio discussing the finer points of the Second Sorceress War. She decided to follow them.

On her way, another strange sight appeared. A stark difference from their surroundings, three cadets were huddled on the bench facing the entrance. Selphie vaguely remembered the one in the middle, who seemed to be crying while getting lectured by the others, as the library girl Zell was crushing on. Selphie shrugged it off and moved on. As she got closer and got into the dormitory section, she became very aware of what they were going to listen in on.

Her steps were taking her to the administrative section.

Oh, no.

**2**

"_Rinoa, we need to talk."_

_Rinoa almost dropped the wine glass she was holding. Squall saw her body go all rigid, a knee-jerk response to what she probably saw as an unknown. Him, wanting to talk must have, he guessed, seemed alarming to her._

_She drowned the glass, poured another one, and looked at him._

"_Do I need to sit down?"_

"_If you want to."_

_Rinoa pulled over a bar stool and sat down. She set the glass on the counter. She looked at him, expectant._

_It was so difficult to start. He didn't know how to do this._

"_Squall, what is this about?"_

**3**

"Oh, is _that_ what this is about!? SeeD? That's it? Is that what I am to you, SeeD first, Knight second, human being third – long as I serve your needs, right?"

"You're just trying to avoid the big fucking picture you short-sighted fuck! I am a Sorceress! You were trained from day one to kill me and those like me, how past it can you really fucking see? How much longer before you decide SeeD is more important!?"

"I could have let Odine freeze you and launch you into space! I could have done anything, anything but what I did, anything but to save you – and you still have the _gall_ to question where my loyalties lie? Fuck you!"

"Face it, goddamn it – you are the General, this is as high as your chain goes, you're on top! Are you really gonna trade it in for me, just stop living the dream?"

Selphie felt a knot in her throat. Her heart was beating fast and one thought was looping in her head: this was her fault. All of this. That their argument over the very basic tenets of their existence in reference to one another was broadcasted to the halls. That the cadets and SeeDs alike were listening, that she herself was listening to it.

She had done this.

"The dream?"

"Yes! The dream! Your dream!"

Selphie felt the words twist like a knife in her gut. This implied one thing, and that could push Squall to do just about anything.

She had to stop this.

"...Who the fuck are you to bring Seifer into this!? Who the- is that what this has been about, all this time!?"

**4**

"_All this time, I... felt that there was more to this. To you, me. To us. I don't regret any of it. I wouldn't do anything different if I had the chance. Well... maybe I wouldn't let you go with the Hyne's Descendant in the first place, but, that's beside the point."_

_Rinoa set the glass down._

"_And the point being?" she asked._

"_I'm just not sure."_

"_About what the point is?" she said._

_Squall saw something shift in her, but didn't know what to make of it._

"_I'm just not sure about us anymore. Things kind of just... stopped. After everything, I..."_

"_So the point is, you're not sure if you want to be with me."_

"_That's not what I'm saying."_

"_Squall, you're new at this," she said, her tone reeking of condescension, ", so let me give you a bit of advice on how to do it: say what you say, or shut up. Don't dance around the subject, hoping I'll get it."_

_Squall shook, cursed that she could probably see it, and decided to do the one thing he could do to get himself out of a corner: go on the offensive._

"_I was trying to be delicate."_

"_Yeah, well, you suck at it."_

"_...if that's the way you want it."_

"_I don't want it at all, but sounds like you do."_

"_Fine, whatever. I don't want to do this anymore. I don't feel that this relationship is going anywhere, and I want it to cease to exist if it will not go anywhere."_

"_So you're basically dumping me for the next best thing."_

**5**

Selphie started to elbow her way through the thick wall of people blocking the hallway.

"That's _not_ what I said!"

"Then what did you say?"

"I said _your _dream, don't you, him, or any SeeD dream of ascending!?"

"There wasn't a rank and file in the Garden and you _know _it! It wasn't until Cid named me Commander that we even had such a thing! There is _now_, but it is because _we_ wrote the rules, _we _made all that, how could I have dreamed of something that didn't exist at the time!?"

"Oh, puh-leeze. Like you're so different."

"From Seifer? From that _cunt_!?"

"Cunt or no, you _are_ a copy of him, an exact fucking copy!"

"_I am nothing like him!_"

"Aren't you, really!? You're fucking delusional, Squall!"

Selphie increased her pace, telling people left and right to move, because she had to get to the door, she had to get in there and get between them, stop them, to stop all of this.

Why? Why? Why?

**6**

_Why?_

"_What?" Squall asked._

"_You want to break up, is what you're saying. You want to break up because, well, everything is everything, isn't that right? You got what you wanted out of it, and now you want new things."_

"_That's not what I said."_

"_It is what you meant."_

"_I think I can decide what I mean."_

"_You couldn't decide what to say two seconds ago."_

"_Do you really want to do it this way?"_

"_Since when does what I want mean a shit? I want you to not be a SeeD. I want you to be my Knight. I want you to be my boyfriend, lover, whatever you want to call it. I want many things, Squall, one of them being to be with you."_

"_I'm not going anywhere."_

"_Not in that kind of context, damn it!" her voice was rising steadily, "What will I be once we're through, did you ever think about that? Where will I go? What will I do? Who will help me exist in this world? Did you ever think of that – or does me being what I am now somehow mean that you need me crazed, so you can perform your duty? Squall's sword will pierce my heart? What a fucking joke."_

**7**

"What a fucking joke! Let's see – you've got the scar, kudos on that, you are a SeeD, which he wanted to be all his life... you are a Sorceress' Knight, the dream he actualized before you... you are fucking his ex-girlfriend, which means you're eating out of his hand, really, and this is just pathetic! You're in denial!"

The sound of something made of glass shattering to pieces came.

Selphie pushed the couple in front of her aside and got to the door. Four cadets were blocking her way.

"Fucking _move!_" Selphie snarled. The cadets turned, saw her, their faces changed with their recognition. They all stepped aside, gave her room. Selphie turned her back to the room and gestured them to disperse, to walk away. The crowd exchanged glances, one or two actually followed her command. Upon seeing their tendency to linger, Selphie finally spoke.

"Just get out of here, all of you." She snarled, "This isn't for your entertainment."

With that, the cadets, most of them reluctantly, vacated the hallway. Silence crept in. Selphie found herself counting the beats of her heart while waiting for a sound, any sound to come from the room.

She heard murmuring, and footsteps approaching the door. Selphie backed away just in time for the door to open, revealing Rinoa. She stopped momentarily to look at Selphie, as if disbelieving she was standing there, and then stormed off. Selphie watched her leave.

Then, she was left facing the open door and the very relevant, very significant and very big question of whether or not she should go in.


	5. The Outsider

"_**Estranged"**_

**4. The Outsider**

**1**

Squall stumbled towards the door, intending to close it. His hand felt the cold curve of the doorknob and then he saw Selphie, standing there, looking dumbfounded. He found it extremely strange in that moment, and just so completely _wrong_. There Selphie was, in her SeeD uniform, her back to the wall, staring at him with this weird expression on her face.

She looked like she had just died and didn't know how to tell him that.

"Selphie, what're you..."

It sunk in halfway through finishing the sentence in his head. She had that look on her face because she had heard. She _knew._

Oh Hyne, she knew...

**2**

"_How long have you known?" Quistis asked._

"_Not long." Selphie said, "I just overheard a conversation once. I wasn't eavesdropping, I was just at the right place at the right time... or the other way around. Whichever sounds better."_

"_The wrong place at the right time."_

"_Yeah, okay, that works so much better."_

_Silence._

"_So, what are you gonna do with what you know?"_

"_I don't always do something with what I know, Quisty. Especially with things I wish I didn't know. I mean, I know that Balamb sharks sometimes circle the ring, but you don't see me baiting them with cadets... some of the time."_

_Quistis laughed._

"_Yeah, that is true. But, all that aside, can I ask one thing?"_

"_What is it?"_

**3**

"How much..." Squall said, "...did you hear?"

"Squall, I..."

"How much?"

"I just..."

"Don't..." he clenched his teeth, "Don't bullshit me."

Selphie looked at her boots for answers, but they had none to give. She didn't want to look up. She didn't want to look at him. She didn't want to see him.

"I'm sorry." She said, "I'm sorry, I..."

"Whatever." Squall said, "If you're not going to answer me, attend to your next class."

"SeeD." Selphie said just as Squall moved the door, "That it was about SeeD was where I came in."

Squall didn't say anything. Silence hung in the air. Selphie wanted to cross the distance and apologize, to tell him that it was all her fault, that if it hadn't been for her-

"Who else?" Squall asked.

"There were a lot of cadets, I... told them to disperse. Y'know, nothing to see here."

"...thanks."

Silence.

"Are you coming in?" Squall asked.

Selphie rose an eyebrow, but decided to roll with it.

Squall closed the door and locked it. He grabbed the open wine bottle on the kitchen counter and went to the living room, which was basically a pair of sofas facing each other over a plastiglass coffee table. He sat down and took a giant sip. Selphie sat on the opposite sofa, and politely waited, her eyes moving from one mundane object (ashtray on the coffee table, half-full, a pack of Galbadian Marlboro's containing twelve cigarettes and a box of matches next to it) to another (the Moogle clock on the wall, her gift to Squall on his birthday) to avoid staring at him.

She waited for him to speak, if he ever would.

**4**

"_How long do you think I can afford to keep quiet about this?"_

"_If there's a manual for this sort of thing somewhere, I'd love to have it, and if you knew about the manual and didn't tell me, I'll kill you."_

_Quistis laughed again, clearer this time, more joyful._

"_I don't think there's a manual."_

"_Then we're shit out of luck, 'cause I dunno if there's an appropriate time. Well, I have an idea, but, you wouldn't wanna hear it."_

"_What? Tell me!"_

"_No. I mean, you don't tell me about the manual and stuff, so..."_

"_Selphie!" Quistis landed a light punch on her shoulder, "Tell me!"_

"_It's whenever you think is right." Selphie said, "No matter what anyone says, it'll have to do."_

**5**

Of course, that didn't help her impatience. She started, quite self-consciously, to fidget. Crossed her legs. Uncrossed them. Looked at the clock. Played a little game where she imagined a Chocobo running from even numbers to even numbers, and then odd to odd.

Meanwhile, Squall drained his wine bottle, slowly.

Then, suddenly, he looked at her and she froze. She had his complete attention.

"I don't know what to do." He said, "I just... don't."

He ran a hand through his hair.

"I don't know what happens now." he said and returned to the bottle. Selphie bit her tongue. Twice. "I'm not even sure if I want to know."

Another sip from his bottle. She cracked.

"Squall, I... never meant this to happen, I'm just so..." she swallowed hard, "...so sorry. If I hadn't said anything, if I hadn't..."

"Selphie, this has nothing to do with you." Squall said, "What happened has nothing to do with you. You didn't do anything to cause this."

**6**

"_You really think so?"_

"_Yeah." Selphie said, "It's going to have to do. I can see why someone, say, with the last name of Leonhart, might especially have an issue with it. I'm not saying I like it, at all, or approve of it, but I don't recall anyone asking for either, so... as long as you are happy."_

"_As long as I'm happy..."_

"_If you're not is a different story. Then comes crunch time before you can say Moogle. Then comes fightin' words!"_

"_I'm hoping," Quistis said, suppressing a laughter with her hand, ", that harsh language won't be necessary."_

"_Is it ever..? Wait... yeah, okay, it's necessary sometimes."_

"_Sometimes. But hopefully, not this time."_

"_What was it Cid had said one time? Hope for the best no matter what?"_

"_And Sir Kiros had added that it didn't hurt to prepare for the worst." Quistis said, "I think that's what we have to do. Especially where Squall is concerned."_

"_Oh, leave him to me."_

**7**

Selphie just glared at him. Was it just her, or was this conversation, if it indeed was a conversation, heading in the direction of him simply leaving himself to her?

"Come again?"

"I need a place to stay." He said, "Rinoa moving out would be worse. If I remember correctly, you're in a double with no roommate."

"Y-yeah, I am..." Selphie said, suddenly very keen on the idea, keener than she'd like, "You can stay with me if you want."

"The others would..." he looked away, to the wall, to the painting of Adel's Seal, a beautiful piece, "...ask questions. Offer unsolicited advice, unneeded opinions, I..."

"Squall, hey." Selphie said with a smile, "I already said yes."


	6. The Illustrator

"_**Estranged"**_

**5. The Illustrator**

**1**

"How will this help?" Squall asked.

Selphie traced the curve of his knee, pressing a bit harder around the middle. Quietly, she took him in, sitting on the armchair, legs crossed, staring at the wall clock. She pressed the charcoal a bit harder onto the paper in order to shadow the area correctly.

"It will help _me_." Selphie said, adding the armchair's arm for reference, "It will help me relax."

"Whatever."

"I knew you'd feel that way."

"Can I at least drink while you do that?"

"Please don't."

This prompted him to turn to her, shifting his head out of alignment, but thankfully, not his body. Selphie continued to draw.

"Squall, you've been drinking at least a bottle every day for the past week and half. Ever since you moved in..."

"It helps me relax." He said.

"It waters it down." Selphie said, "So that it's easier."

"I need something to take the edge off." Squall said.

Selphie didn't say anything. She continued to draw, working on the shadowing of the armchair. She wanted to get that out of the way before moving to the other things, like his arm, shoulders and, though he'd never admit it, rather angelic face.

**2**

The silence endured. Her thoughts were hidden, even from herself, and his guts laid, spilled, all across the room, speaking volumes without saying a word – he was, far as she could tell, letting her in.

**3**

"It's going to kill you." Selphie said, "That's how you feel, isn't it? It's going to kill you."

"...maybe."

"You can't..."

"...con a con artist. I forget."

Selphie looked up from her drawing, but not to observe what she was transferring to the paper. She looked up to see him, staring at the same space he had been for the past twenty odd minutes, but somehow different. Softer.

She felt almost giddy at the prospect of being able to disarm him with just a sentence. No para-magic, no weapons, no manipulation, just a simple sentence.

Of course, there was always the other side of the coin.

"You didn't just pull me into this thing for a drawing practice, did you?"

"Maybe."

"Now who's trying to con who?"

**4**

Selphie bit her tongue on something she had been biting her tongue on for a while now. She was still trying to decide between doing what was right and probably more constructive on the long run and just blurting it out and getting it over with.

No. It wouldn't be what she wanted if she said it, and the consequences for just saying it here, now, and to him, would be more than just 'dire.'

Instead, Selphie opted for a safer truth, an easier fact of the matter. A better one than the one on the tip of her tongue.

"I'm worried about you."

She didn't have to look at him to see his genuine confusion. Selphie thought it strange, and a little sad, that he was unable to relate to that.

"I can take care of myself." He said.

"Squall, you've been drinking yourself to sleep for more than a week now." Selphie said, continuing to draw, aware that she was losing her focus. He, who had begun this exercise as the passive object, was steadily overshadowing the process.

**5**

It was true, and he knew it. He wasn't quite sure if it had taken him three or four days to get his shit sorted out. The first day, he remembered having Selphie help him move his clothes, weapons and personal effects (toiletries, books and such) out of the room. Second day, after two rounds of running cadets to the ground on endless sparring drills, he had collected his administrative documents. Third day he didn't entirely remember – he remembered a headache, making excuses to Quistis, taking a nap in Selphie's crevice, painkillers and sleep. He did remember that at some point he had changed the dormitory assignments to move in with Selphie and leave Rinoa the room, as well as arrange for Rinoa to begin training next term, but that might have occurred anytime.

He hadn't felt anything in particular to any of it. So when he had come across a few bottles of Estharian gin, courtesy of President Loire (whom he refused to call "Laguna" no matter how hard the man tried to get him to do so) he had thought it a good idea to try and figure out how he'd react to alcohol. Now seemed like a good time test that.

The first night, he had come close to actually getting close to the bottom of whatever the fuck it all was. The second night, he had had a little more fun and got more comfortable with being there. The rest was a bit of a blur, every trip blending into a comprehensive period of the sharp, thin taste of gin and dissolving into an indistinctive whole.

And now, there he sat, letting her draw him, and wondered how the hell she could just get him to where he needed to be so easily.

**6**

"It's easier." He said, feeling her watch him, not to create an impression of him, "It's easier with it. First inch is the warm-up. Halfway through, I'm really good. The rest is just thoughts and feelings. I hate the end of the bottle. Not because it ends, but because it reminds me why I was there in the first place."

"You don't need to be there."

"I do. I need to understand."

"Understand what?"

"Why this is happening, or what happens now."

"Rinoa wasn't the end. You know I love her and all, and I know you loved her, but the thing is..."

"I wasn't talking about her."

"Oh?"

"Selphie, I don't know what happens after the war ends."

The piece of charcoal stopped dead.

"The war ended." He said, "We survived. I survived. And I have no idea what the fuck happens now."


	7. The Wrist

"_**Estranged"**_

**6. The Wrist**

**1**

Squall tried to rationalize what was standing in front of him in various ways, each of them doomed to failure sooner than the previous. He had a splitting headache that all the Esuna pills weren't going to cure in the slightest, he was strung up on industrial-strength coffee on three hours of sleep, and he had a training session on bladed weapons in half an hour. The ambient hum of the hangar wasn't helping, the rush of the technicians running from one hovercraft to the next, and the howling of Ragnarok's engines winding down just felt like too much.

He wished he had his gunblade with him.

"Explain this." He said to Quistis.

Quistis stared at him. Zell, standing by his side, put one hand on Squall's shoulder, followed by Selphie's hand, small and light, brushing against his other arm.

"Be gentle." Selphie said.

"Squall, I really don't think explain is the right word." Quistis said, "I don't think I need-"

"Cut the shit." Squall said, "Explain it to me."

"There's nothing to explain."

**2**

"_He's not going to see it that way," Seifer said. Around him, the rustle and bustle of the Deling Café paused only briefly, as if to concur. Quistis took a sip of her coffee, licked her lips, drove him crazy in that instant, and put her hand on his._

"_It doesn't matter." She said._

"_He's the General. What he says is gospel in that place... you know this already."_

"_This is less an issue of what Squall thinks of you, and more an issue of what he thinks of me and mine. If the simple reality of me wanting to offer you a second chance isn't enough to bend him to that, well..."_

"_No." Seifer said, "Just no. What I will not let you do is to throw your life away for my sake – don't pretend like SeeD wasn't most of your life."_

"Most_ of my life." Quistis said, "Not all of my life."_

_Seifer sighed. Quistis smiled. Seeing him consider her... it made her believe that this was how he always could have been. This humbled, considerate man that she saw._

"_And besides," Quistis said, "I'm not so sure if it should be even that anymore."_

**3**

"I beg to differ." Squall said, "I think that you bringing a war criminal to my Garden-"

"_Our_ Garden." Quistis corrected him.

"It merits some explanation. Where did you find him?"

"Balamb." Quistis said, "Remember that coordination with Estharian architects, to build an on-site training facility for SeeD where the Garden used to be? Met him while I was on the town. He was running errands, pulling odd jobs, playing handyman and such for the townsfolk."

Squall could feel Zell glaring at Seifer, who was just standing there, wearing jeans, shirt and a jacket, and patiently shutting up. Him? Seriously?

_The world really has gone to shit_, Zell thought.

"Is there a reason why he's here in all this?" Squall asked.

"Squall, don't-" Selphie began. Squall shrugged to silence her.

"I took the time to asses him." Quistis said.

"What's your assessment, then, Lieutenant General?"

"As an instructor and a SeeD, I think he can and will be one of our finest yet."

"Did you assess him as something other than an instructor?"

"That's another debate, one that has jack shit to do with any of this."

"No. It isn't." Squall said, "It's clear that your assessment is based more on your dating him than your instructing or analyzing him. That you love this motherfucker isn't reason enough to bring him here, that you're actually with him is reason less. Your assessment as an instructor means nothing, because I know firsthand that you let your feelings overshadow your work. So, here's my answer to him: no."

"This is based on nothing but your hatred for him, Leonhart." Quistis said, "So don't you tell me that I'm emotionally compromised!"

"Oh? It isn't?" Squall said, "Tell me, how long have you been _assessing _this asshole?"

Quistis bit her tongue, followed by Selphie and Zell. Zell, he missed, Quistis, he saw, but it was Selphie who made him understand.

"Let me guess." Squall said, "A few months? So, you held off telling me until you were sure you had enough reasons to throw my way?"

**4**

"_Why not?" Seifer asked._

"_Because the war is over. The only known sorceress is dating the General and is where she can be neutralized within minutes. We don't have a reason to be what we are anymore, to do what we do anymore. We can step down."_

"_Is that what you think?" Seifer asked, "I'd love that to be true, believe you me, but SeeD isn't about fighting wars."_

"_You weren't even a-"_

"_Quistis, I spent more time observing SeeD than anyone else. Outside, looking in. I know."_

_A momentary silence._

"_Why didn't you tell Edea all this?"_

**5**

"Because I believed you couldn't handle it! And look at you! Was I even wrong?"

"Don't twist this around, Quistis. Fact of the matter is, you can't offer me reason one why Seifer Almasy should be here, apart from your half-assed _assessment._"

"I don't need a reason." Quistis said, "Regulation says that I can nominate anyone, without reason, to be a SeeD, and you fucking know it."

"Regulation also says that we don't harbor criminals. Or aid and abet a clear and present enemy of the Garden, no matter the circumstance – don't you take that route with me, Quist. Where that is concerned, I own you."

"Alright, that's it!" Selphie said, "Both of you! Shut the fuck up! My turn to talk, and your turn to listen, and to listen good, damn it!"

Zell grinned at the stunned faces of all assembled.

"Now." Selphie sighed, "None of you three can look at this from a rational point of view. Sorry, Quisty, but you do let your emotions rule you when it's someone you care about."

Quistis' gaze hit the floor.

"Seifer," Selphie said, "you're probably the only one here whose motivation is somewhat pure, so I'm not gonna argue that. I'm gonna tell you, however, that you killed people I cared about, and if I had a chance, I'd snap your neck myself. That you seem to want to reform, if that's the word, isn't reason enough to forget what you did. Remember that."

Seifer shrugged. His face read, fair enough.

"Squall..." Selphie said, and saw his eyes beg her not to say it, "You hate him so much you're letting it rule your decisions. I agree, this asshole doesn't deserve a place here, _by default._"

Squall's eyes narrowed, but not in malice. He thought about it for a second.

"A test?" Squall asked, "You're saying we should offer him a test?"

"Why not?" Selphie said, "We offer everybody else a test."

**6**

"_Because if I told her then and there, she wouldn't be satisfied. I wasn't going to invoke her wrath. No way."_

"_So you didn't think the question had merit?"_

"_I thought that it had merit, sure. It isn't too far a stretch to think you SeeDs have a secret passed onto you when you are finally over the line."_

_Quistis laughed._

"_I can't believe you thought SeeD was that distant to you."_

"_Distant?"_

"_Mystical secrets that, if known by Sorceresses, can give them power? That sounds like a bad movie plot. If I didn't know better, I'd say you weren't in the Garden at all."_

"_I was, I just didn't see anything other than the massive dividing line between the cadets and the SeeD."_

_Quistis raised an eyebrow._

"_A cadet is nothing." Seifer explained, "He's a potential, that's it. He can be a wasted potential, or a potentially talented student. But a SeeD is... beyond. It's above, it's the next level."_

**7**

Squall looked squarely at Seifer.

"Here's the deal." He said, "You. Me. Tomorrow night. No rules. If I don't kill you, you get to the next level. You get to stay."

A moment's silence. Everyone held their breath.

"I'm not gonna fight you, Leonhart." Seifer said.

"Then, you're not going to stay here." Squall replied, "You're in my house now, Almasy. The only way in, is through me."


	8. The Kill

"_**Estranged"**_

**7. The Kill**

**1**

Squall put one hand on the blunt side of his new gunblade and waited for Seifer to try to pull that double-handed thrust. A signature move that he knew how to counter, but that was before, with the heavy-handed Revolver. Now, with his lighter LionHeart, home to an eight-round capacity and a lighter, slightly curved blade, he had another plan.

The thrust came, Hyperion's needle-point edge moving in a straight line towards him, and Squall lifted his blade up. Following it, Squall swung a kick, which landed dead center on Seifer's stomach, and sent him reeling. Squall swung his gunblade, bringing it about an arc and towards Seifer, who took a desperate leap away from his range. He landed in his back, rolled, stood up and barely kept his balance.

"You're slow, sloppy and too obvious." Squall said, "And out of practice. I have cadets with more skill than you."

Seifer stood there, gunblade in hand, and looked at him with genuine confusion. Squall, talking? In a duel?

"Talking to me now? You've changed." Seifer said.

**2**

"_You haven't changed one bit, you know that?" Selphie said._

_Squall threw his jacket onto the kitchen counter and headed straight for the fridge. He could use a drink right about now, and it didn't really matter which kind – it had to burn his throat, dehydrate him, and get him soothed._

"_Another drink isn't gonna help, Squall."_

"_It's a start."_

_He found a bottle of whiskey, half-full. Huh. Must not have been his, he thought, he usually finished the bottle. He opened it, and without bothering to take a glass, took a sip. Bitter, sharp, traveling down like a bundle of razors._

"_Selphie, I... really don't want to have a discussion about this."_

_He put the whiskey back into the fridge, regretting it already. But he had said tomorrow night, and he needed to be a little more alert than hungover._

"_Thank you." Selphie said._

"_Didn't do it for you." Squall said._

"_Squall..."_

"_Don't worry. If I can, I will kill that fuck tomorrow."_

"_You're really not going to stop, are you?"_

**3**

Squall's gunblade bounced off the Hyperion once, twice, three times, four, five, six and suddenly Squall switched the weapon to his right hand and swung from below his waistline. Seifer barely saw the move, and felt the blade slicing into the first few layers of skin as he leapt back.

"'least I can talk _and_ fight!" Squall said.

Seifer smirked.

Squall was about to rush on ahead, but the glow of Seifer's free hand alerted him. Suppressing a smile himself, he turned and ran along the edge of the crater. Jets of fire, sizzling in the air, started to land, one after the other, onto the trail Seifer was tracing behind him. Squall grinned openly now, knowing that this had been Seifer's fatal mistake.

Squall stopped abruptly and pointed his palm towards Seifer. With the cracking of energy, a chain lightning, a Thundaga, flashed in the air and caught Seifer in the chest. Hyperion flew out of his hands and got stuck in between two rocks and he was thrown back. He landed hard and let out a grunt.

Squall rushed on ahead, bringing his gunblade to bear and moved in for the kill.

**4**

"_Stop? Stop why?"_

"_Because it's not worth it. _He_ sure as _fuck_ isn't worth it."_

"_What the f-"_

"_No, you listen to me. I'm not saying don't go at it. I'm not saying hold back. I know you will go and I know you won't hold back. But whatever you do, don't kill Seifer."_

"_Are you gonna defen-"_

"_No. No, and don't you dare. I think he should get what's coming to him. I'm not saying don't kill him for his sake."_

"_Then?"_

"_It's not worth losing Quistis." Selphie said, "It's not. He's not worth that price."_

"_Quistis can't see straight." Squall said, "The GF I've used eradicated most of my pre-Garden memories... so all I have to go on is Irvine's word and what my own mind tells me."_

"_Were you seeing straight when you just grabbed a suit and leaped out into space?" Selphie asked, "Or when you grabbed Rinoa's body from the Infirmary and tried to walk to Esthar? Not much of what any of us did during the War makes a lick of sense."_

"_The War is over."_

"_You're still fighting it... it's still on, for you."_

_Squall looked her squarely in the eyes. Selphie shivered._

"_It's all I know." He said, "I need a war."_

"_...you're gonna kill him, aren't you?"_

**5**

Seifer kicked the ground and swung his legs up just as Squall's gunblade tore through the air and struck the dirt. Seifer had barely stood up when Squall took another swing, forcing him to sacrifice his fragile balance to avoid getting killed. Seifer rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding another strike from the gunblade. Roll, strike. Roll, strike, strike, roll, strike, strike, roll...

Seifer pushed the ground, and the gunblade came from under him, forcing him to flip to his side and fall on his back again. In a second, Squall was on top of him, his gunblade already in position to take the plunge.

No time... no magic... no weapon... nowhere to run... no means of defense...

Seifer looked up and saw Squall grinning widely – a savage grin that curled his lips slightly upwards. The grin of a madman. Seifer froze. His entire being just stopped at the amount of raw glee Squall was taking from what he was about to do.

_Great Hyne, this is it..._

A guttural, almost shredding scream tore out of Squall's throat and Seifer braced himself, as best as he could, against the killer blow.

He saw no choice but to accept it. There was no other way.

**6**

"_Isn't there?" Selphie asked, "Squall, please listen to me – this isn't the only way to do this. There is more than one way to skin a Moogle, goes the phrase..."_

"_Another one of Laguna's?" Squall asked._

_Silence. Selphie wasn't sure if that was an honest inquiry or an insult. She couldn't see anything beyond the fact that Squall was a wall, and she _had_ to punch through it if she wanted to do some damage control._

_And fuck them for leaving this all up to her._

"_Okay..." she put a hand on her forehead, trying to stimulate thought, and then, "...here's an angle: do you need a war?"_

"_Yes."_

"_Don't you have one with him?"_

"_Yes."_

"_So why are you so anxious to end it? From where I'm standing, hopefully, he's the only one you're gonna get for a while... you can do more to him by not killing him, you can make him suffer..."_

_Squall raised an eyebrow at this._

"_That way," Selphie continued, seeing that she actually had his attention this time, "You can kill him many times. Many, many times."_

_Squall found himself actually considering this. Would it be so bad..?_

**7**

The blade's tip pierced Seifer's vest and stopped a fraction of a millimeter short of his skin. Seifer could feel it there, cold, eager and intrusive, but held back by the will of the madman standing on top of him.

"You lose." Squall said.

He then did something to astound Seifer beyond what he believed was possible: he withdrew the gunblade and took a few steps away from him. Seifer hesitated. This could have been another trick, he wouldn't consider Leonhart as being above that sort of sadistic shit... the kind he used to pull.

"You can get up now." Squall said.

Seifer took this opportunity to at least stand. They stood, without saying anything. Seifer broke it.

"Are you going to tell Quistis, or should I?"

"You should tell her." Squall said, "It's her room you're going to be occupying."

Seifer's jaw hit the ground when it went over the possibilities in that sentence.

"We're all in double rooms. You'll move in with Quistis. I'll make sure the paperwork is done. You start next term, which is non-negotiable. Some rules, even I have to follow."

"You're letting me stay?"

"Was that not clear? You're a cadet again."

Squall turned and started to walk. Seifer hurried to get his gunblade and then ran after him.

"Hey, wait!"

"Seifer, I swear..."

"You said this was to the death! What happened?"

Squall stopped.

"I killed you."

"Unless you learned this language in a different town, you didn't."

"You're a cadet now." Squall said, "Which means, you are under _my _command. I killed you, Almasy – your life is mine."

Squall walked away. He could use a drink. And, he found himself, oddly, craving a conversation.


	9. The Thought that Counts

"_**Estranged"**_

**8. The Thought that Counts**

**1**

Selphie sighed in relief as she settled into her usual hiding place in the wall of the Quad. She knew this opening like she knew herself – she knew exactly how her body could fit. Knew all the combinations of limbs. Sometimes she wished she knew her thoughts like this, it'd make it easier, so much easier to think if she did. But, as things were, she had to make do with only physical comfort.

She listened to the sounds the cadets were making. Somebody was playing guitar. The strings ringing in her ears, she tried to distinguish voices. Sentences, dissipating into the air without coherence soothed her. In the distance, distinguishable by their intensity, two girls were busy jumping all over each other's sentences to patch together a judgment of sorts. Selphie, interested slightly, or perhaps just welcoming the distraction, looked on. Huh. Hadn't she seen those three on the day Squall and Rinoa had broken up..? Oh yeah, Zell's girlfriend and her two friends.

Their conversations seemed to involved and besides, Selphie hadn't come there to socialize.

She just didn't know how to even begin, so she took the thread of her own thoughts from wherever it may come.

**2**

Squall Leonhart.

What a thought. That was partially the reason why she couldn't actually think in a linear fashion, from beginning to end. It was impossible to shape Squall Leonhart as an idea in a non-complicated manner. So best start, Selphie thought, with the connotations of the concept and work from there.

Gunblade. Scar. Blue. Black. SeeD. General. Leather. Orphan. Quiet. Introverted. Drunk. Gin. Vodka. Passed out on the couch. Functional wreck. Coming apart at the seams.

And therein was the problem: he was functional, yes, but Selphie could see a spiral gradually forming. Every night he drank himself to sleep and when he slept, he often woke up (and woke her up) with his screaming.

Selphie didn't need to know what he saw in his dreams. Hell, she didn't think he even registered dreaming, or waking up and going back to sleep. But she knew his dreams.

Every night, she dreamt the same thing.

**3**

Time Compression.

The very fabric of reality, as basic as it was, slowly unraveling. Past, present, future, possible pasts, presents and futures all melding into one, becoming irrelevant, becoming meaningless, dissipating, _disappearing._ But all that had been a distraction, an aside. What had happened was so much more horrible than everything she took for granted slowly falling to pieces.

Selphie knew she had played her part, went through the motions to do what she was supposed to do: act as the field medic, the protector; keep the others safe while they gave all they had to Ultimecia. A Protect spell here, a Shell spell there, maybe the occasional offensive take on her nearly-impenetrable shield...

But all that had been just sideshows to what she was feeling, years of drill and training allowing her to run on automatic. Inside, she had been absolutely _terrified._ The very concept of Time Compression had, from the start of the battle to the end of it, picked at her mind, had driven all of her thoughts in one direction. The incomprehensible, incomprehensive, dissolving, intangible, illogical, impossible truth of Time Compression – that there was just here and now, nothing before and certainly nothing after.

The moment without past or future, the isolated, context-free moment was what she kept coming back to.

**4**

One and two and four and seven nights in the past two weeks, she had found Squall occupying the couch, once with the quarter-full glass still in hand. She had curled up next to him and had slept there. It had comforted her, to know that he was there. She hadn't dreamt in those nights. Come morning, he'd wake her up and they'd have breakfast in total silence, he'd pop some painkillers and go work his way through the day while she tried to shake off the dreams and the anxiety.

Selphie knew, even when the night off from the couch seemed too cold, that his presence gave her what she needed. Something that wasn't made of plush to keep her company.

It didn't, however, take her mind off of the strange concept of Irvine.

**5**

Irvine Kinneas.

Anxious wasn't quite the word Selphie'd use, but it had been the case that morning when, right after Squall had left, Irvine had called. She hadn't been ready for that, at all.

What confused her was... no. Time for that later. Stick to the line.

**6**

"_...Selph?"_

_Silence on her end, silence not because she didn't know what to or had too little to say, but because she had too much to._

"_Selphie..? Are you there?"_

"_Yeah. I'm here." Mostly._

"_What's up, how are you?"_

"_...what do you really want to talk about?"_

"_Oh come on, I just-"_

"_Don't _I just_ me. I know this isn't a social call."_

"_Actually, it is. I was thinking about coming by a couple of days, y'know, get away from this place. Hang out. So I was thinking that we could, y'know, get together."_

"_No."_

_Selphie felt in that moment that the world was on fire – everything was burning down around her. She felt that she was the one who set it ablaze._

"_...what?"_

_That something so simple (no), so little (no) should have such an impact was fascinating, yes, but this fascination wasn't as strong as her insistence._

"_Said no, Irvine. I don't want to get together."_

"_Why not?"_

_Think like Squall._

"_Because you can still ask me that. Goodbye."_

_Selphie slammed the phone down and silenced Irvine's protests. Selphie listened to the silence of the room and remembered that he was gone._

**7**

And faded as the feeling was, traces of it still remained. Loneliness. It wasn't just tied to being in her hiding place, the shell she had found in the wall. It wasn't alone – loneliness went deeper than that.

The strangest of all, maybe, was that this concept –loneliness- brought her to how it could be eased. It all looked to a man who preferred watering down his loneliness with alcohol every night, a man that was a functional wreck at best. He chased the bottle and she chased him.

Did she want to catch him, in the end..? Not if he fell, she knew that they were all falling.

Irvine was clinging to what he had made out of the war. Quistis and Seifer were both finding each other, holding onto their reasons to feel fulfilled and guilty all the same. Zell wasn't anywhere near anything, he kept his head down, and was barely around anyway. He was keeping it simple.

Selphie couldn't deny the simple thought, the very seed of a thought: would it be so bad if she and Squall chose not to hold onto anything and just fall with the rest of the pieces..? Lie where they'd fall?

Selphie didn't know.

All she knew was that every night since, despite the alcohol, Squall had woken up screaming. His body had sprung, and Selphie had had to wrap her arms around him to keep him steady. She had held him as tight as she could in the dark and had whispered to him that it was all okay, that it would all be alright... and hadn't believed one word of it.


	10. The Living

"_**Estranged"**_

**9. The Living**

**1**

Seifer slumped onto the sofa and sighed. Quistis, after taking two bottles of root beer, sat down next to him. Seifer ran a hand through his hair and stared at the clock.

"...that bad?" Quistis asked.

"Worse." Seifer said, "He kept saying the same thing..."

**2**

"_You're dead."_

_Seifer took two steps back, brought the Hyperion around for another opening stance. He flipped it, held it inversely and supported the blade with his free hand._

"_Don't open with that unless you're further away." Squall said._

"_Why not? I've opened with this before in closer quarters."_

_Squall slid forward. Seifer thrust the blade forward, which Squall easily dodged. Squall's gunblade slid across Hyperion and ended up an inch from Seifer's throat._

"_You can only go for a forward jab and it's obvious." He said, "Try another."_

_Seifer took two steps back. He placed his pinky finger on the trigger and held Hyperion like a normal, two-handed sword. Squall didn't say anything. He kept his stance neutral. Seifer charged, wound his blade from the left, which was then Squall stepped forward and took a jab at his stomach._

"_Too high and takes too long to wind up the blow." Squall said, "Seriously, Almasy, you're wasting my fucking time."_

_Seifer glared at him, but didn't say anything._

"_I'm out of practice, I know."_

"_It's not that you're out of practice." Squall said, "It's your gunblade. Same problem I had with the Revolver. It's too unwieldy."_

"_It's what I trained with for years."_

"_Let's try it once more, then."_

_Two steps back. Seifer brought the tip to the ground, held the gunblade with it's sharp edge facing Squall. Squall sighed._

"_I'm not even going to dignify that. You're dead already."_

**3**

"There wasn't even a chance? Just with the opening stance?"

"I didn't think I was dead yet either." Seifer said.

**4**

"_I said already, there is no 'yet' in this."_

"_I'm just saying that maybe you should-"_

"_You're going to take a step forward and swing it, hoping that I'll come at you with a blow from the right. If I do, you have a good chance of putting me on the defensive. If I don't, you'll shift position, use your free hand to add force and throw me off, so you can take on the offensive. It's see-through. It's bullshit, Almasy."_

**5**

"It _is_ bullshit!" Quistis said.

"I didn't get to the part where-"

"You don't need to. Knowing Squall, I know what he was like."

"Yeah... suppose you would."

"But the thing is, this half-assed rank-and-file system gives him two things." Quistis said, "One, he's the General... thank fuck we keep him in check."

"And two?"

"The only qualified gunblade specialist with a license to instruct. Unfortunately."

"Me actually reacting to his bullshit didn't help, I think."

"You... what?"

Quistis shifted, and looked him dead in the eye with such focus, it made Seifer shiver.

"What did you say to him?"

"Just..." Seifer said, "Sort of, y'know, spoke my mind?"

**6**

"_Did you take this assignment just to insult me, Leonhart?" Seifer asked, "Because I am curious as to why you're the one that has to train me."_

"_I'm the only gunblade specialist with an instructor's license." Squall replied, "And if this is the best you've got, then I am embarrassed that you gave me a scar."_

"_Know what? Fuck this. Fuck all of it. I'm not gonna be a part of this. I'll get the rest of my re-training when I'm officially a cadet, how's that?"_

**7**

"That's not even an option." Quistis said.

"I know." Seifer sighed, "Believe you me, I know. Worse still, he knew it too. He didn't say anything to that. Just turned and walked away."

"Late for his date with the bottle, I'm sure."

"Been meaning to ask you about that - I mean, I could smell whiskey in his breath when we got close."

"Selphie told me that he'd been drinking from the moment he ended things with Rinoa, and hasn't stopped."

"I'm still fuzzy on how that happened in the first place."

Quistis just glared at him.

_The same way I happened to find you and love you, in the end._

She said nothing.


	11. The Dead

"_**Estranged"**_

**10. The Dead**

**1**

Squall closed the door behind him and felt as if he was closing the lid on his own coffin. He felt absolutely dead. He threw his SeeD jacket onto the counter and headed for the fridge. All he wanted was a drink or five to soothe the headache and water down his senses. Something to take the edge off.

Keeping the fridge stocked with booze was starting to become an issue. He only had three bottles of Galbadian whiskey and one Northern Estharian vodka left. It was eating into his paycheck, not so much the cost of the alcohol itself, but in terms of shipment expenses (although Zell having quite a bit shipped to him did cut it in half.) Since he really couldn't be bothered to have a face-off with the rest of the council, which, consisting entirely of veterans, was less than a jury-of-his-peers, on why he was spending the Garden budget on his own steadily-escalating habit.

Squall knew enough to know that this edge-removal op was in inverse proportion to his well-being. As he sunk, it rose. He was still hanging onto his self-imposed, a bottle-a-day limit, but it was getting harder every day to stop at a bottle.

His throat was getting drier by the end of every bottle.

Squall thought that he was probably just waiting for a confirmation to tell him that he wasn't alive anymore.

**2**

It'd be a lot simpler. Selphie knew that much. Not being alive was a good solution to all the inherent problems to being alive. It was simple. But as funny and entertaining as that idea was, the other side of the coin still was that she needed to be alive for a few things.

One of those things always fell into her mind as she followed one of her routes to her room for the past two weeks. Selphie was sure that it was way too much self-importance, way too much of the constant reverence of the cadets for the "Waif-mage" of the veterans, way too much of training and certainly way too much of Quistis reminding her that the others didn't care like she did... way too much of it.

Way too much of nights interrupted by screaming so sharp, so pronounced that it drowned out her own.

But no matter why it was, the thought remained the same: she felt that she had to be alive for him. In a way, Quistis didn't know half of it. Selphie understood her better than she could ever hope.

Because Selphie felt every day that if she weren't there, he'd fall to pieces. He didn't know it, and her awareness of it was only growing.

This, along with the thought (and would it be so bad to have it..?) was forcing her to be aware of where she was heading. It was almost as if she wasn't halfway through, but there already.

**3**

Already? No. He shouldn'tve felt this fucked up on the third glass. But there he was, swimming through the chaotic mess of his own thoughts. He knocked it back and poured the fourth. The fourth would make it better. Maybe the fifth, but it wouldn't take longer than that.

The door opened and he glanced in the direction of it. The colors seemed more pronounced somehow, yet more deadened at the same time. Huh. This was his first crack at the vodka. It'd shift, he knew. He also knew that he should have stuck with the whiskey. It didn't matter now.

Selphie was halfway through taking off her jacket when she saw Squall. Clenching her teeth, she slung it over the kitchen counter. She headed to the fridge, and before Squall's eyes, took out a bottle of whiskey, poured herself a glass and came to sit right next to him.

They drank a few sips without a word. Selphie felt attuned to Squall's reactions, his sluggish movements and impossibly dissonant breathing. Squall simply felt the vodka drown his brain further and further in the quiet white noise.

The silence didn't last, and in some way, it reminded Squall of how nothing did.

"It's going to kill you." Selphie said.

"I don't feel that way."

"Squall it's not seven o'clock, and you're halfway through the bottle on what's probably an empty stomach."

Squall didn't say anything.

"The long and short of it is that you're drinking yourself to death."

"I'm not dead."

"Not yet."

**4**

Yet. It seemed such an ugly expression in that moment. Lots of things stopped or stalled at a yet. He wasn't dead, yet. She hadn't quite had enough to drink, yet. None of them had had enough self-flagellation, yet.

It wasn't time to speak her mind, yet... or was it yet, it wasn't time to speak her mind? Both ways, she knew that she had to ease into this, or he'd run, run his fastest yet, and she wasn't sure if she could chase. Wasn't sure if she'd want to.

So she got up and got herself a glass before returning to her seat next to him. She held up her glass. He looked at her, confused both from being tipsy and for a lack of understanding.

"Pour me one." Selphie said, "I know that people can't sober up like *that*, so, I'll get a bit drunk instead. Level with you."

"If you want to..."

It wasn't an issue of that.

He poured her a glass. It was sharp, bitter, and burned her throat. But she swallowed, wondering why it had to _had to _be vodka, and waited for him to start. Oddly enough, he did, by commenting on how admitting Seifer wasn't such a good idea – not because he hated the motherfucker's existence, but because his actual gunblade skills left much, _much_ to be desired. Selphie didn't say anything – her mind was divided between Squall's technical breakdown of Seifer's shortcomings and Quistis' insistence that Squall was making this harder on him to extract some petty revenge.

Her second glass chased the third and the third poured into the fourth. When her head started to float, when their conversation seemed little more than catching floating words and tacking them onto surfaces, she decided it was time, but had nowhere to begin.

**5**

To him, this feeling was oddly familiar – couch underneath him, glass in hand, draining, always, to that final, perpetually insufficient sip that it will eventually freeze on... her, by his side.

Oh, he _was_ aware of it, on some level. The brief half-moments of clarity in between the nightmares were always full of soft assurances. I've got you. It's over now. Everything is fine. Everything is gonna be okay.

But most of all, he remembered her gently saying, I took care of everything. You can sleep now.

Another sip from his glass and it burned his throat. He listened to the wall clock ticking and listened to her breathing. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her slowly getting lost in her drink, joining him. She looked so lost.

**6**

Would it be so bad, she wondered, if she spoke?

**7**

"I hear you at night." Selphie said, "You scream. Cry out."

"I know."

"Why do you do this to yourself, I mean, seriously?"

"I can't control my dreams."

"Not that, ya lunkhead, I'm talkin' 'bout the booze."

"I told you before-"

"Ya don't need to take the edge off. That's a lie. You're a liar."

"You're drunk."

"I'm... relatively drunk... y'know, like how you're relatively sober?"

"Easy."

"Nah, know what? Fuck easy, Squall. I tried easy."

"You... did? Wait, what does that even-"

"It was easy for me to just sleep on the couch next to you, easy to just sit and drink this shit-" she took another sip and her face pulled an expression of pure disgust, "-to get drunk enough to maybe say something worth a fuck. It's easy, you see, for me to draw fucking sketches and-and go to my classes and train like normal. It's easy for me to pull on a happy face. Know what's not easy?"

Squall could only stare.

**8**

It wasn't stopping. She wasn't stopping.

"It's not easy to tell anyone how much it fucking hurts, and not just my own bullshit pain, I'm talkin' seeing you fuck yourself up every single day! It's not easy to tell you, like holy Hyne I think I'm telling you now, that I have this small, five-second pure bliss every day when I come home, take off my jacket and look at the couch, because I wanna believe in the five seconds it takes me to do that, that when I look, you won't be there, fucking boozin' in the uniform you were in the whole fucking week straight! You'll be there checkin' written exams, or polishing your gunblade or, I dunno, fucking some random fan of the veterans forty ways from Sunday!?"

"That's-"

"It's not easy, because it's fucking real, okay? I care about you more than I can-" she knocked the glass back and with a slightly uneasy hand, filled it back up again, half of which she then drank right after, "-than I can even figure out, y'know, it's weird and it's new and it's fucked up, and I don't even know what it means, but that's what it is. That's what it always was. Everything, just- everything, fucking all of it, and for _what!?_"

Selphie stood up, drained the other half of her glass and did something that made Squall freeze: she threw the glass on the ground and shattered it to pieces.

"_For fucking what!?"_


	12. The Words

"_**Estranged"**_

**11. The Words**

**1**

"Selphie, calm dow-"

"No, I'm _done_ with calm! I'm done with calm and smiling and trying to keep you in one piece, damn it!"

Squall snapped.

"You think this is easy?" he said, "You think it's breeze-through, like nothing ever happened? I can't just, I can never _just!_ What do you wanna know? Why I do this!? Were you even there?"

"Where do you get off asking me if I was-"

"-because I sure as fuck remember you being outside the-"

"-there, you're not the only one who bled-"

"-shell and you just saw the surface of it-"

"-and that doesn't excuse you acting like a dick-"

"-and I can't just tell you, I could never-"

"-you're not solving anything-"

"-just speak and tell you everything, I can't say-"

"-why don't you see-"

"-that-"

"-I love you, damn it, and why won't you... say... anything..."

Silence, sudden and heavy with meaning.

**2**

Selphie cupped both hands over her mouth, but she was too late to catch the words. They hung in the air, full of implication and incomplete thoughts, waiting for either her to bring them down by denying them, or scatter them by admitting it. Selphie found herself unable to decide. She averted her gaze, but halfway through it, decided not to run. No, she had come this far.

She looked into his eyes and shivered at the raw focus she saw in them.

**3**

"Squall, I..."

"Why?"

Selphie's jaw dropped and she felt the alcohol dissipating.

"Why would you..."

He couldn't say it. He opened his mouth. No words.

"...does there have to be a reason?" she asked.

Squall didn't say anything. He returned to the bottle, which had a rather large sip's worth left in it, and he drained it. He let it linger in his mouth for a moment, just to taste the silky-smooth, razor-sharp pulling sensation and then swallowed.

Selphie was afraid to say anything. She could only see the gears turning. She wasn't even sure what _she_ was going to do now. She didn't mean for any of this to happen. It was the booze. It was the words. It was everything and nothing.

"It hurts." Squall said, his eyes glued to the ground, "There's only pain, and desperation, and the thought that nothing's going to be alright. Something broke, Selphie. Something's broken, and it can't be fixed. It's all just... spinning the wheels. Nothing's in control."

Selphie felt every muscle in her body tense up and freeze. She didn't dare move.

"Then, I come home. I drink, I forget for a while. The rest of it just reminds me of what happened. Reminds me of all the shit that comes with it. The clarity of Rinoa. Not just her absence or presence, the clarity of her – that as long as I could make sure she was okay, there was no need for me to be. It didn't matter, _I_ didn't matter. I don't."

"Stop."

"You wanted me to talk." He said, "So, listen. This is what it is."

"Why wouldn't you matter? Who the fuck told you that?"

"Isn't it true?"

"Hyne's sake, Squall, why the fuck do you think I abandon a good, king-sized double-bed for that couch every night!? It's not only because I feel a vacancy where someone else once was, it's also because I hear you, every night and I-can't-stand-it!"

"Then why? Why!? Why do you love me, why do you choose the couch over your own room? For Hyne's sake, _why are you holding on?_"

"_Because there is nothing else!"_

**4**

Squall felt the booze slowly drain from his system, but there was plenty of muddled thoughts left behind.

"It's painful. It's hard. The easiest part is to pretend and the hardest thing about that is knowing that it's all make-believe. A show for the others to watch. And I look at us, all of us and... we survived the war, but we aren't gonna survive ourselves, we aren't gonna survive each other. And I want it all to be over, to stop, to be like it can be, not what it is, and I..."

Squall stepped forward and roughly pulled her in a tight embrace. Selphie felt his arms lock her into place and found his free hand drift up and his fingers slide into her hair. Selphie froze, but a part of her relished his closeness, and slowly, she relaxed. She enjoyed the scent of alcohol and aftershave, the smooth feeling of his shirt.

"I'm sorry." She said, "I'm so sorry..."

"So am I."

"I just..."

"I know."

**5**

"So... what now..?" Selphie asked.

"I don't know."

"Maybe that's a good thing."

"I think it'll make some kind of sense once we sober up."

"I'm already sober. You?"

"Relatively drunk."

Selphie cracked with laughter. The tension just rolled off of her as she laughed, and she withdrew slightly. She looked at him, and saw him smile that same smile she'd seen at the first victory party. Still laughing, she put a hand on his cheek.

"Who knew you could joke?"

He shrugged.

The moment came to a screeching halt as they looked at each other, as if they had just noticed the other was there. Squall moved first, followed by Selphie. They moved closer...

The phone's shrieking pierced the hum of the room and caused Squall to cringe. He let Selphie go and picked it up.

**6**

"What?"

"_Squall, it's... it's bad. Get dressed, get to the Quad."_

"I'm in the middle of something, Quistis, send your bitch, or do it yourself."

"_I wouldn't call you if this wasn't serious, you self-righteous cunt! It's Zell, and it's urgent! Is Selphie there?"_

"Yes."

"_Get your communicators so I can tell you what happened on the way."_

"'fuck did he do?"

"_Just get to it, asshole!"_


	13. The Consequences, Part I

"_**Estranged"**_

**12. The Consequences, Part I**

**1**

The sobbing and choking in the background of the other end of the line went on for a few minutes as Squall and Selphie made their way through the dorms. Squall tried to focus. The chaos of the rush, what he knew they hadn't left in their room, the now-faint buzz of the vodka... he was barely focused on where he was going.

"Who's that?" Selphie asked.

"_Name's Darina. She works at the library."_

"The library girl?" Squall asked.

"_Yeah, apparently, the reason why we haven't been seeing Zell all that much, or, at all, was because he was spending it locked up in his room, drinking."_

"Seems to be a theme 'round here." Selphie said, half-expecting Squall to actually react.

"I already know this." Squall said, "Zell and I pile our shipments together to cut down on the cost."

"_And you didn't tell us!?"_

"You are the last fucking person to tell me what I should have told you, Quistis, so shut up and continue."

Selphie, sensing that Squall's direction was on automatic, grabbed his hand and guided him through to the entrance of the Quad.

"_When he wasn't drinking, he was fighting with Darina over this and that, and, as we hear, beating her at every disagreement, and they appear to have been disagreeing every day."_

**2**

Selphie stopped dead, causing Squall to miss his step, stumble, but end up keep his balance, just shy of passing the entrance area.

"You said... what?" Selphie asked.

"_The infirmary has records records of injuries, mostly blunt force trauma, the odd cracked rib, dating back to almost three months. Kodowaki says she tried to have the girl come forward."_

"Well why the fuck didn't she?" Squall said, "We all have issues, yeah, but we still make allowances for what's-"

"_She said she couldn't trust the veterans. That we had all seen something nobody else would understand, and that was stronger than anything."_

"Stronger than getting her face kicked in!?" Selphie asked, "Bullshit!"

"_...you two, you really deserve each other, none of you knows how to listen... It was stronger than anything because, one, most of it was her own fault, where she got that idea I don't even wanna know, and, two, it was the rest of us who had broken Zell, so we couldn't fix him. Direct quote, far as Kodowaki told me."_

"It wasn't us." Squall said.

**3**

Three gunshots echoed in the distance. The sound was coming from the Quad.

"Anything else we gotta know?" Squall asked, not even expecting an answer after that.

"_He's armed._"

"He's a martial artist, what's he armed with!?" Selphie asked, mainly out of pure curiosity, despite all the evidence.

"_Standard-issue handgun."_

"Don't consider a career in reconnaissance." Squall said.

"_Oh, fuck you, Leonhart. I'm sitting by the bedside of a girl who's missing three teeth, has broken ribs, fractured shoulder blade and a lot more... who was put here by Zell, of all people, and all you can think about now is how to stick it to me?"_

Seeing that Selphie was about to speak, Squall lifted a hand and asked for a moment.

"Here's a piece of truth: actions have consequences! You burned every bridge you had when you decided to bring Seifer aboard! I don't owe you anything! None of us owe you _jack shit_, so don't act like you're entitled to our respect!"

Squall threw away his communicator and ran into the quad, followed by Selphie.

**3**

Selphie and Squall were intercepted at several points on their way by cadets fleeing the Quad. Squall caught one by her jacket just two steps shy of the main area, slammed her to the wall and held the poor, squirming girl in place. Selphie took that as her cue to peek her head around the corner.

The Quad area was full of students, all of them on the ground or on their knees. Selphie clocked a few couples under the stage. She couldn't quite see the stage from where she was, but Zell's voice, sputtering forth what seemed like slurred, drunken nonsense was coming through loud and clear.

"What's he doing?" Squall asked the girl.

"He-he-he..."

Without skipping a beat, Squall slapped her with the back of his hand, eliciting a yelp.

"You're a SeeD cadet, how are you going to succeed if you lose your shit like this!? Again, what's he doing?"

"He just... came..." the girl said, her wide eyes not daring to move from his stare, "...with the gun and the... bottles."

"Bottles?"

"B-booze... wh-wh-whiskey..."

"Go on."

"First he was... offering some... said he'd drink at least two, but we could have some... started telling stuff."

"What stuff?"

"Stories... stories like, war stories, Sorceress War stories and then... somebody mentioned Laguna Loire... he just... he..."

Squall, not wanting to wait for her sobbing, shook her.

"He what!?"

"He... he-he-he just lost it... I don't know where he got the gun, he just shot-"

"How many injured?"

The girl's eyes started to roll up. Squall pulled her closer and slammed her against the wall again, "How many injured!?"

The girl's eyes closed and her body went limp. Squall lowered her, as gently as he could, to the ground. Selphie crouched by his side.

"Fuck..." Squall hissed. He ran a hand through his hair. He was sweating like a pig.

"We need a plan of sorts." Selphie said.

Gunshot, booming.

"I have a plan." Squall said, "I'm going in first."

"And..?"

"You'll know when to come in."

**4**

Zell was quite a sight. Standing center stage with his trademark spiky hair hanging on both sides of his face, his uniform's jacket open, his shirt half-tucked in... gun in one hand, quarter-full bottle of whiskey on the other, slurring up a confused little storm.

"So the point in our little... uhh, story, I guess, I don't think that was a story, and if it was, not a good one, ummm... yeah that's not... what was I saying..?"

"Zell!"

By the curve his head had followed in just getting him to turn to where the strangely meaningful sound was coming from, Squall understood that Zell was tip-toeing that line between being shitfaced beyond reason and alcohol poisoning. He drank enough to know.

Squall tried to get his fucked up head to function. Hostage procedures... what did the _Biblis Tactica _say? Come on, Chapter Eight, arbitrator's signs...

It clicked. Squall took off his jacket and rose both arms.

"Heeeeeeeeeeey!" Zell said with a grin that made Squall shiver, "Look, everyone 'tis Squall Leonhart... Generaaal."

Zell looked at the audience, who, Squall observed, were too scared to move.

"Aren't you gonna salute the General!?" Zell shouted, "Well, I-"

"No need." Squall said, hastily, "I'm off duty now. As you were."

_Not that you have much of a choice._

"Squalllll, buddyyyyy, I was jus' tellin' these 'dets the fuck they gettin' inta, y'kna? 'bout the war."

"Can I come up to the stage?" Squall asked.

"Yahhh, sure!" Zell smacked himself on the head with his gun-hand, and opened up a small wound on his temple, "Sorry, man, I juss', yeah, manners, yeah, come here, come up."

**5**

Squall walked in front of the stage, intending to go up stage right. He kept his pace even, but slow enough that he could do a quick scan of the crowd. A cluster of cadets, three clutching non-fatal wounds, arranged in a 7x7 formation... Squall shivered.

And how the fuck Zell had aimed well enough to not kill them aside, the fact that he might not have had aimed at all was something he really didn't want to think about.

He walked up the flight of steps and joined Zell on the stage. Zell greeted him with a harsh hug. He took a huge sip from his bottle, and passed it to Squall, who pretended to drink by clenching his lips together and lifting the bottle up. He then returned it to Zell.

Squall looked down.

Two discarded bottles, not a drop to spare... not if you don't count what Squall prayed wasn't urine filling them up.

This wasn't good.

"Listen up, 'dets! Intorducing... eentroduuceeng General Squall Leonhart, give 'im a big... hand... applaud, damn it!"

Squall watched faces filled with fear smile, almost eagerly, and heard the thunderous applause that followed.

**6**

Selphie decided that Zell drunkenly announcing Squall was as much a cue as she could expect, and the applause that followed it confirmed that.


	14. The Consequences, Part II

"_**Estranged"**_

**13. The Consequences, Part II**

**1**

Squall, smelling the whiskey on Zell, wondered if this had been the same alarming scent others had picked up from him.

"Zell, what are you doing?" Squall asked, "What is this?"

"I was tellin' 'em stories." Zell said, "Cool stories, like the war, and the... well, y'know, cool stories. The Missile Base! Like dat. Dat spider... tank... thing... the fuck it was..."

"Hey man, I could use some more of that whiskey while you tell your story." Squall said. Somehow, it worked like a miracle. Zell passed him the bottle without a word. Squall gripped it tightly by the neck. Weapon, check.

Some part of him was repulsed by the very notion that he was now officially treating Zell as a target.

The rest of him focused on what the little voice that he was trying to shut off told him, eagerly and repeatedly: that it just as easily could have been him standing on the stage with a gun in his hand.

"So, uhh," Squall said, "The Missile Base."

"YYeaaaaaaah!" Zell said, "'member the Missile Base?"

"I was actually on the other team." Squall said, "Remember?"

**2**

Quistis remembered what came before, but she didn't quite remember what would cause this.

Looking at the broken body of the girl whose name she only knew because Kodowaki had told her, Quistis couldn't break herself away from what Squall had said. It wasn't the part about burning bridges, she had anticipated that. She perhaps had miscalculated the intensity of their hatred towards Seifer and the magnitude of her own lack thereof, but, it was nothing new.

But actions having consequences... was _this_ a consequence?

Poor girl had been beaten to within an inch of her life, by a professional. It wasn't just the concussion – her jaw was broken. Slipped disc and vertebrae, broken bones... Kodowaki estimated that she'd probably have some difficulty seeing even after recovery.

Seeing the damage in her, Quistis couldn't help but also see the damage that had been inflicted on them. Every wound a scream, every wound a sense of entitlement felt and expressed unjustly. Every broken bone a different aspect of them twisted into monstrous urge.

Still, it came back to the thought that this girl shouldn'tve been the one pay for what they were feeling, rightfully or not.

Quistis felt it swell inside her, and rise. She was about to break, almost completely, when a voice stopped her.

"How is she?"

Quistis turned to see Rinoa.

**3**

Squall turned to Zell to see Selphie, crawling along the wall.

Zell was rambling at full speed.

"...so, so Selphie says like, _Let's get into the tank, it's thick enough to shield us!_ And Quistis is all, _We don't have time, how're we gonna do that,_ and... so we crawl in, and whaddya know, no fuckin Galbs dere, awww yeah, and we closed the hatch and jus' as we did, it started rockin' and, Squall, hey, 'sup you, uhh, look like you could, uhh, I dunno... what's gettin' ya down?"

Squall decided that he had had enough.

"Zell, just honestly what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"I'm the night's enterta..." hiccup, "Entertainment!"

"You're holding a bunch of cadets hostage just so they can listen to you ramble on about the good old days. You shot three of them."

"They'll live!"

"Yeah, thank Hyne you're a crap shot."

"Look, buddy, I didn't call ya up here ta steal my-"

**4**

_Nothing is wrong with him. Something's wrong with all of us._

Selphie crouched and slipped into the under-stage – the intricate scaffolding holding it up allowed for her to slip in, but that also meant that there were quite a few people, mainly couples, underneath the stage as well.

Selphie crawled on her hands and knees to the nearest cadet couple.

"Hey." Selphie whispered.

"S-sir."

"Listen, we gotta get out. But we can't do it if it's all of us, we have to-"

The sound of glass shatteringoverhead made Selphie cringe. The scurrying footsteps that followed it sprung her into action.

"Everyone! Double-file, hug the wall, straight line, move!"

Nobody did anything.

"Fucking _move!_"

**5**

Squall moved. He only had one shot at this. He grabbed Zell by the hair and without giving him a chance, placed a knee onto the small of his back. He yanked Zell's head back, exposing his throat, and pressed the remaining and rather sharp piece of the bottleneck onto his skin. Squall could see where a piece of glass was still stuck on his head where he had struck him. He was bleeding.

"This is just a-"

Zell shifted at incredible speed for someone drunk off his mind; his right foot snaked around Squall's right ankle, and when Squall shifted, Zell turned, giving himself a non-fatal cut on the neck, and swung a left kick. Squall jumped back to avoid the blow, but also gave up his proximity advantage completely.

"You forgot who yer fuckin' wit, Leonhart? I'm intoxicant-trained! Top'a my class, fuck you know!?"

"What were you trying to accomplish here?"

"I am not someone that you can fuck around with, what's wrong with you!?"

Squall stood in an opening stance, legs parted, knees bent, left arm lifted, right arm below... it was business as usual, only, he had a bottleneck instead of a gunblade.

"They don't know, man!" Zell said, and the tears in his voice stopped Squall cold of his signature opening move, "They have no fuckin' idea!"

He was pointing at his audience, listening, wondering what they had done wrong and if they would ever get out of this, all in perfect 7x7 formation.

"_We_ know, you and me, we know! _They_ don't! I was tellin' 'em stories, yeah, 'cause they gotta know, man! You can't do _shit_! Cards down, open, not there, whatever, you can't accomplish nothin'! You don't get a victory or anything like that, you just win, you go on, and you look down at the fucking carcass and think, lucky motherfucker, he got off easy, he's away from this now, he doesn't have to deal with all the-all the bullshit that rides on your every move!"

"Ultimecia was a problem." Squall said, "Putting it fucking mildly... and we were the solution, what more do you-"

"_I didn't solve anything! _You guys, the rest of you, you did, but I... I just..."

Zell threw the gun to the floor and took a fighting stance.

"I'll show you how to solve a fucking problem!"

**6**

"I don't think it was supposed to solve anything." Rinoa said, "Any of this. Certainly not this. Poor girl..."

"I don't know what pushed him to this." Quistis said, "I mean, we're all slowly falling apart, I know that... but this... I just don't know."

"Actually... I think I do. For once, I think I know why this is happening."

Quistis looked at her. Rinoa, upon seeing the utterly lost look on her face, crossed her arms and told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth:

"You all know how to survive, but not how to live."


	15. The War

"_**Estranged"**_

**14. The War**

**1**

_Selphie pushed the ground, her arms feeling like they were made of solid adamantine, and lifted her Crescent Wish just as Squall came crashing down at her feet. He slid on the no-ground, seemingly just sliding across dying galaxies, and stopped just shy of her torn boots. He rolled over and she stepped back to avoid him. One hand, bare now with the pieces of the glove still hanging on, pushed the surface and he got to his knees._

"_Fuck..." he spat blood and stood. Selphie saw that he, too, was weary. Selphie saw that his hair was slick with the red. He turned to her just as Quistis, a little closer to Ultimecia, cursed and unleashed Gatling Gun in a roar of bullets that all bounced off of the Sorceress' shield._

_Everything seemed to freeze. It all seemed so... hopeless. In vain. _

_There Zell was, unconscious a l__ittle ways from the Sorceress, knocked out during the opening salvoes._

_Rinoa was held in one hand of the abomination, struggling, casting every sp__ell under the sun to no effect._

_Quistis was expanding what little she had left with every offensive bit of blue magic she could think of, and Ultimecia was just fucking standing there, defiant._

"_Selphie!"_

_Squall's voice. Selphie glared at him. Squall. Huh._

_What a nice idea, that._

**2**

_Squall's bloodstained face held many expressions. Grim determination. Weariness. Despair. Rage. Cold steel. Like weapons aimed at the world, and he was looking at her for support. He was looking at her._

"_No. Don't break, damn it, I need you. I need you now." he said, "We can still-"_

_A scream erupted from Rinoa, preceding the Sorceress throwing her to the side. Squall didn't even flinch – his intense focus on her kept Selphie from even thinking anything._

"_We can still take this, but I need you."_

_Quistis' hail of curses, followed by the whoosh of micro missiles._

"_Wuh-what do you want me to do?" Selphie asked, wiping her tears with the back of her hand._

"_Can you still cast?"_

_No. Yes. Maybe. What good was it? It wouldn't work, she couldn't get through the Sorceress' shield, and time was compressing all around them and-_

_Two hands on her arms._

"_Selphie! Don't leave me here!"_

_Leave... him?_

_No, why would he..._

"_I can still cast."_

"_Then follow me."_

**3**

_Squall ran across the space between him and Quistis, who was on her knees, breathing heavy, trying to gather strength for one more push forward. Selphie looked ahead and saw Irvine ducking ice spears launched from within Ultimecia's bubble, and rolling to get to Quistis' side._

_Squall dropped to one knee next to Quistis._

"_Selphie, protect us while I tell you what we're gonna do.__"_

_Protect them. She could do that._ _She could use the Limit Break, the Wall. She concentrated, her mind angled towards the task, and started to methodically work the piece of para-magic._

**4**

"_Irvine __pounds pulse ammo into the shield and you attack the same spot. Selphie's job will be to protect-"_

_Ice spears tore through the air and shattered on Selphie's Wall._

"_I... can't..." Quistis said, "I'm spent..."_

"_You can do it!" Squall said, "Look, we don't have much time! Where's Rinoa?"_

_Irvine looked across the no-space of the Time Compression._

"_Out of commission." He said._

"_Fuck it. Down to me, then." Squall said, "You make an opening for me to slip through. Do that, and it's over. I'll bring her down."_

"_**Time... it will not wait..."**_

"_Just let me... catch my breath..." Quistis said._

_The crack of thunder came and the energy scattered across the Wall, and cracked it. Selphie cringed in pain._

"_Okay, ready?"_

"_Squall, you can't do this!"_

"_Why not?"_

"_Because I can't protect you!" Selphie shouted as a row of ice spears shattered on the Wall and shook it, "I can't protect you out there!"_

**5**

_Squall looked at Selphie and said:_

"_I don't need you to protect me, just live!"_

"_I think... I'm ready... as much as I'll ever... ever be." Quistis said._

"_I have all the pulse ammo I've got cocked in. Ready to go."_

_Squall turned, brought his gunblade to bear. The weapon seemed heavier than it ever seemed to him before._

"_All set?" Squall asked._

"_Yes!" Selphie said._

"_Go!"_


	16. The Consequences, Part III

"_**Estranged"**_

**15. The Consequences, Part III**

**1**

"I guess, in the end, it doesn't really matter." Quistis said, "There is no coming back from it. Even Ellone admitted it: you can't change the past. You can only make peace with it, accept it... or you end up fighting it for the rest of your life."

"Even me." Rinoa said, "I did what I did. Played my part, better or worse. Now that I'm done, I don't know what I have to do. Irvine, he..."

Rinoa stopped and pressed her lips together. Quistis raised an eyebrow.

"What does Irvine have to do with any of this?"

"He's partly why all of this is happening."

**2**

Squall wasn't sure that Zell was why this was happening, but he didn't have time to dwell.

Zell stretched across the distance with a well-placed half-crescent kick. Squall lifted an arm and parried, and then quickly moved into Zell's space – he thrust the bottle neck towards Zell's exposed throat, which he countered with a back-handed blow, followed by a very sturdy punch that landed on his cheek and rattled his teeth. Squall quickly side-stepped, trying to get out of Zell's range, but Zell managed to land a kick, two, three on his side. Squall saw him put his foot down and knew that he would extend with another kick.

Once again, he moved in and fuck this little thing... with no range, it was down to as up-close as he could afford to make it. Squall swung the bottle neck, which Zell ducked by shifting away from it. Two, three, lower, lower, more to the right, higher, eight, nine and Zell's fist connected with his stomach cavity.

The wind knocked out of him, Squall tried to take a few steps back, but Zell was on him. Squall remembered why they had an intoxicant training in the first place: so that fighters could perform even after they'd been drugged or under the influence of poison spells... to Zell, being drunk meant nothing in a fight.

A punch connected with his shoulder joint and numbed his entire arm. Squall howled in pain, which was when Zell's fist connected with his chin and threw him to the ground.

Squall lay still for a moment and felt time stop.

A thought plunged his head into perfect, contented stillness, before allowing him to drift away.

_I'm done. I'm finished._

**3**

Selphie knew that she wasn't finished. The cadets under the stage were safe, but what about the cadets which, from what she could see, were oddly in 7x7 formation...

_Crazy asshole made them stand formation while he held them hostage? Observed protocol when... this is just beyond nuts._

Selphie crawled back out the way she had crawled in. She could hear it coming to blows on-stage, and knew that this was Zell, and that Squall, barely functional at this hour, didn't stand a chance. She simply hoped Zell didn't dual-skill and learn how to wield a gun during a fight.

Then, a very loud thump. Selphie knew. Squall was down for the count.

She quickly ran around the front of the stage. As she passed them by, she pointed at the cadets to scram, and hoped that they had enough guts to follow through. When she got to the steps leading to the stage, she saw that the cadets were, in a surprisingly orderly fashion, leaving. Great, she could focus on the problem at hand.

The problem at hand: Zell holding a gun at the head of a defeated Squall.

Selphie knew that she had to put a stop to this.

**4**

"How?"

"Irvine showed that you can just get out. Out of the Garden, well, maybe not _the_ Garden, but this one. That you could just make do with being the veteran, run the Garden, prepare the younger ones to another war, maybe one where SeeD will have to take me down..."

"I'm sorry, but he wasn't missed all that much. He fucked off, that's all there was to it. Even Selphie-"

"I miss him." Rinoa said.

Quistis took a moment and then, understood.

"Does Squall know?"

"Do you think he should?"

"No."

A pause.

"So, what are you going to do?" Quistis asked.

"Nothing. I'll see where the pieces fall."

**5**

Zell looked at where Squall had fallen, and it looked suspiciously like the stage in the Quad.

"Man, I thought you got it." Zell said, placing his finger on the trigger, "I thought you-"

"_Stop!"_

Selphie's voice? That was new. Zell turned around, gun still trained on Squall, to see Selphie, in her SeeD uniform, standing a few feet from him.

"Sefie..?"

"Stop it, Zell, please..." Selphie pleaded, "Please, don't hurt him."

"'s not about hurtin' anybody, 's about us. All of us!"

"Zell..."

"We won, yeah?"

"Zell, please..."

"If you say that one more time, I'm gonna splatter him all across this stage! I swear to fucking Hyne!"

"Stop, just stop..."

"We won, yeah?"

Selphie found that as much as she intended to interject, she couldn't speak. Something in her chest, at the most inopportune moment, had decided to tug at her heartstrings.

Zell, frustrated, let off a bullet into the air.

"We won, _yeah!?"_

"Yes! We fucking won..."

"We didn't win _shit!_" Zell said, turning the gun back on Squall, "We _survived! _And what did that accomplish? Nothing! No, no no, _this,_" he lifted the gun, as if to demonstrate, ", is the answer."

"Answer to what, Zell? Nobody asked the question! You're drunk and you're bitter that you didn't get to be scared out of your wits trying to keep sane _and_ win the fucking war!"

"It's the answer to us."

**5**

"What kind of an answer is that?" Quistis asked.

"I'm sorry." Rinoa said, "But I'm through with all of this. I've decided to go back to Timber, maybe try to put myself to good use. Wrestle the control of the city from my father, maybe."

"You're going back to playing Princess?"

"No. Not a princess. I think I can be more than that."

"You know Squall will never just let you go."

"Oh, he won't mind."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You haven't noticed?"

"No. Notice what?"

"You will."

"Rinoa, I don't-"

"You don't have to. Listen, until the day comes that you guys, or the cadets you trained come to kill me, I'm out. Since I don't have a Knight anymore, I think that's really bound to happen someday. See ya."

Rinoa left, leaving Quistis to the sound of Darina's thankfully steady breathing and the beeping of the monitors. She thought about what Rinoa had said, about Squall not minding her leaving, but couldn't explain it.

**6**

"It's not that hard to explain, Sefie. Why should we exist?"

Selphie felt confusion paralyze her. What?

"We aren't just mercs. We were trained for a purpose since the fucking GFs won't let me remember when, and that was to kill the Sorceress. We killed the Sorceress. Why should we continue?"

"Zell, that's not..."

"But, isn't it?"

He didn't say anything else. Selphie didn't know if she should approach, or if she should keep her distance. Zell's gun was still trained on Squall, who, Selphie saw, seemed to be out of it. Part of her thought, _well, that's what happens when you fight with a martial artist at the end of a hungover day, which in itself was only made possible with painkiller abuse._

No. Something, say something, damn it, tell him something...

What would Squall do..?

Oh yes. _Biblis Tactica._

Selphie was about to speak when Zell's arm, slack but not enough to drop the gun, just dangled back to its neutral position. This was her cue to take a step forward instead.

"It's not enough." Zell said, "It's just not enough..."

**7**

Squall opened his eyes to see Zell towering over him. He heard Selphie's scream, echoing in the air. He saw Zell lift the gun to his temple and pull the trigger.

The gunshot boomed, and Squall saw, almost in slow-motion, the left side of Zell's head open up and let loose chunks of skull and brain matter, right before he, his eyes open, gun stuck in his hand, fell to his side.


	17. The War's End

"_**Estranged"**_

**16. The War's End**

**1**

_Squall dashed across the no-space of the Time Compression, seeming to slide across galaxies just to rush on ahead. Quistis, screaming out, unleashed a volley of micro missiles, followed by a rush of gatling guns. Selphie covered her ears as Irvine pulled on his Exeter. The deep pounding of the pulse ammo, coupled with the brilliant flashes of Quistis Laser Eye shook her to her core. Too much sensory input, too many things assaulting her at once._

_Through the haze of the attack, she saw Squall, dashing towards the Sorceress, towards the abomination that used to be the sorceress... he looked like a bullet, aimed at her and unaffected by anything else._

_How did he do that..?_

_Selphie saw lightning crack, its blue streaks brilliant and sharp, and felt the impact of the force on the Wall. She clenched her teeth and tried to keep steady._

_In the distance, she could see that Quistis and Irvine's constant assault was slowly creating a gap in the bubble of Ultimecia's shield, towards which, Squall was running. He wasn't all that far away now._

_Selphie felt Quistis give up. Her body just disengaged and she slumped to the floor... or whatever passed for the floor._

_Squall leapt into the opening and landed hard, right in front of Ultimecia._

**...no matter...** **how hard you hold on.**

**2**

_Squall felt something grip his self-control and twist it, until he wasn't in control anymore, he was frozen. Fear, disgust, revulsion, rejection of this... thing. It was _wrong._ It was utterly and completely wrong. His entire being was rebelling against it's very existence, his shaking hands were clenched white-knuckle tight with the disgust at the fact that this could exist..._

_Underneath the monstrous form of the Sorceress, suspended, was Ultimecia. Her hair curling up in irregular places, waving with winds Squall couldn't feel nor thought possible. Her arms crossed, her fingers were digging into bloody holes on her shoulder. Her body was being kept afloat by the entrails of the form above her; pink, blue and red, snaking around her pale form._

_Behind her, underneath the monster, the sickening, maddening Void. The pitch-black hole of no-space, devouring all..._

_Squall took a deep breath, closed his eyes and exhaled. Another, and he could move. By then, it had become a question of necessity and he had to move._

_A shriek, dissonant, reverberating with tones he could both hear and not, erupted and a pair of bloody hands grabbed him by his jacket. The arms, thin like twigs and bleeding, pulled him closer with a jerk._

_Squall found himself looking into the eyes of Ultimecia._

**3**

"_Squall, move!"_

_Rinoa's voice. Meaningless voice._

_Timeless eyes, mad eyes, angry eyes, hopeless eyes, sad eyes... intense gaze, harrowing gaze, resentful, hopeful._

_Squall struggled, but Ultimecia was keeping him in place. She was drawing him in, slowly, towards the Void._

_Panic, absolute, rose in him and he started to struggle._

_No. No! He didn't want to go into that darkness, that nothingness, he didn't want to cease to exist, he didn't want to go there, he was scared to go into Matron's room, dark things lived there, dark, slithering, whispering things..._

"_...let me GO!"_

_Ultimecia stopped, just shy of the edge. She held him, dangling on the edge of the Void._

_Her lips parted and she whispered, shouted, murmured, bellowed, howled the words that gave Squall all the strength he needed._

"_Help... me..."_

**4**

_Squall stood up. Overhead, Rinoa's Thundaga cracked, sending blue sparks everywhere, but every one of them skidded across the abomination's skin and fizzled out._

_Squall took two steps back to have a bit of space between himself and his target. Rinoa, in the abomination's palm, was squirming and cursing, but the abomination itself didn't seem to be paying much attention to her. Good. While protected from spells, he didn't know if the abomination was impervious to harm by physical attacks. He simply slid forward and swung. The blade slid right through dark flesh and spilled forward a dense liquid. Squall looked at it. It was shifting its colors constantly._

_No response. Not only could it be harmed, it didn't care._

**It escapes you...**

_The voice made him cringe: full of hush-hush howling of chaotic, garbled, crystal clear tones._

"_Squall, hurry!" Rinoa called, "Her face!"_

_Squall looked up. Where the abomination should have had a face was another piece of the void, and it was starting to open up – flaps of flesh were peeling back to enlarge the space. He was running out of time, but there was no leverage – the abomination was too tall for him to just flat-out strike. He didn't have anything to make him float, and Selphie couldn't cast another spell with the way the Sorceress was now pounding on her Wall with spell after spell._

_Shit... Squall looked around and then, reminding himself that he was brain-dead, saw the only option._

"_Rinoa, Float!"_

_The free arm of the Sorceress came then, and Squall barely saw it coming. Elongating, spiraling, wildly spasming fingernails tore through the air and Squall ducked, barey in time to avoid it. He stood, gunblade ready, and saw the hand turn slowly for another sweep._

"Float!_"_

_Squall felt the ground disappear as he slowly rose, and the backwards-swipe of the abomination's hand missed him by inches._

_Now was the hard part._

**5**

"_That was it, I'm out!" Irvine said as he crouched and dug into his coat's side pocket to see what kind of ammunition he might have had left._

_Selphie clenched her teeth. The Wall wasn't going to hold._

"_Irvy, get ready to run!" she called out._

"_You don't-"_

_With the sound of a million crystal panes of glass being reduced to dust with a mighty blow, the Wall disappeared. Selphie scrambled to her feet and pushed herself to run along the perimeter of the steadily diminishing borders of their no-space._

**6**

_Squall reached out and grabbed hold of the bottom of the abomination's face. In it, there was a luminous spot, glowing, pulsating. Behind it, the merciless, cold, impossible Void._

_Squall lifted his gunblade._

_The arm came out of nowhere and the nails, two of them, dug into his flesh. Squall screamed, and heard Rinoa scream his name. The Sorceress' arm stiffened and he knew what she would do._

**And...**

_Squall brought his gunblade to bear and heard, from the void, a gentle whispering, a split second before he stuck it right in the middle of it._

**...it swallows you whole.**


	18. The Aftermath of Us

"_**Estranged"**_

**17. The Aftermath of Us**

**1**

Squall held Selphie as she held onto Zell's shirt with one hand and cried. He just didn't know what else to do. He held her as tight as he could under the stage lights and whispered to her that it would all be alright, that everything would be just fine... and didn't believe any of it.

Squall simply waited until Selphie cried herself into unconsciousness. With her gone, he had a chance to reel in and return to full consciousness.

He felt numb. But still, miles to go before he could sleep.

He gently placed Selphie on the ground and, using the most basic brain functions, got off the stage, went back to the reception and found the phone. He dialed the Infirmary.

He couldn't believe just how quiet it all was now – there was only the gentle hum of silence surrounding him.

**2**

Quistis leapt to her feet at the sound of the phone. Kodowaki wasn't there to answer it, it seemed, because it was at the fifth ring when she decided to pick it up. She passed to the main area, and from that went into Kodowaki's office.

The line, blinking, read _Quad._

She picked it up.

"Squall!?"

"_It's me. Listen."_

"What hap-"

"_Please..._" something in his voice stunned her into silence. He sounded..._ "Just listen. I don't have the strength to do this twice. I'm gonna need you to do a couple of things for me."_

"What do you want me to do?"

"_Order the Garden Faculty to seal the area and enforce an early curfew, the latter effective immediately and, under no circumstance is anyone allowed to go out of their rooms until we're done. Say that trying to do so is an automatic expulsion condition, no questions asked. Have the Faculty force them clear, if they must."_

"Done."

"_Second, find Kodowaki. Tell her to bring Jace..."_

"The Garden Coroner!? Oh Hyne, oh-"

"_Please, Quistis, I'm begging you, just... listen. Jace and a clean-up crew of three to come to the Quad."_

Quistis felt like she was doused with cold water. She felt numb, a numbness that she knew was a precursor of something much, much more appropriate and equally worse.

"_You don't want to come here." _Squall said, _"You don't want to see this. I'm sparing you the sight."_

"Wha..." she choked, cleared her throat and asked, "What about you..?"

"_I'll never forget."_

**3**

Squall returned to the stage and found Selphie sleeping peacefully, her steady breaths betraying the amount of sorrow she was feeling. He stood there for a few moments, looking at her, her small frame, the way her shoulders moved slightly, her parted lips.

He then looked at Zell. Eyes closed, a pool of blood forming under his head, body relaxed. If he didn't know better, Squall would say he was at peace. He crouched beside his dead friend and found himself unable to look away.

His thoughts threatened to overwhelm.

Squall moved then, tore himself away.

He retrieved Selphie, as gently as he could, and carried her out of the Quad and into the silence of the Garden.

**4**

Seifer opened the door to their double suite and found that Quistis could move very fast if she wanted to. She simply flung her arms around him, pulled him in, and refused to let go. Seifer hugged her back, but it simply made her grip harder.

"Ow! What-what's going o- Quistis could you just- maybe- you're hurting me..."

"Tell me we made it." Quistis said, "Just tell me."

Seifer, while confused, didn't see how they hadn't.

"Quistis, honey, if we didn't make it, I don't know who did."

Silence. Quistis' arms relaxed and Seifer became very aware of the fact that he had probably just said the absolute right and the absolute worst thing.

"Hey," he said, "What's wrong? I was gonna come by the Infirmary to see what's up, but the stupid Faculty didn't let me out."

"Squall's orders." Quistis said, and already Seifer could see tears starting to pour, "It's Zell... Seifer, he..."

It was his turn to move fast and pull her in. Seifer let Quistis fall to pieces and hoped he could pick them up.

**5**

Squall opened the door and slid himself and Selphie past it. He closed it behind him. Not bothering with the lights, he slid past the kitchen and headed for her room. Her door was already ajar. He nudged it with his knee and slipped past it. Knowing the normal layout of these rooms, he simply walked slowly until he hit the bed. He laid Selphie down.

With slightly trembling fingers, he found her boots' zipper and took them off. He took the duvet and gently draped it over her.

Selphie's hand, weak in its grip, found his jacket and took a fistful of the fabric.

"...Squall?"

Squall leaned down, held Selphie's cheeks with both hands and kissed her, long and deep. He felt her relax and exhale.

"It's alright. I took care of everything. You can sleep now."

Selphie smiled a little smile and drifted back to sleep.

**6**

Squall went to the living room. The smell of vodka hung in the air. He took a step forward and heard glass crunch underneath his boots. It didn't matter. None of it did. He found his spot on the couch, more familiar now than it had ever been, and sat down.

There was still a bottle, unopened, on the coffee table. But he didn't feel thirsty at all.

He sobbed. Again. Something swelled up inside him. He buried his face in his hands and he cried freely in the dark, surrounded by silence.


	19. The Funeral Procession

"_**Estranged"**_

**18. The Funeral Procession**

**1**

The dome-shaped crematorium was a simple room of tiled walls and floor. The conveyer belt in the middle had the casket, currently open and displaying Zell in his SeeD uniform, which fed the furnace.

On one side of the casket, the SeeDs in uniform and others wearing black, were friends. His foster parents hadn't yet been notified – Rinoa's idea, to tell them face-to-face.

"Lord Hyne bless us," the Chaplain, standing on the other side of the casket, said, ",those still with the gift of life Forgive us our trespasses, deliver us from darkness."

**2**

Looking at the casket, Squall, Selphie, Seifer, Rinoa, Quistis, Irvine, Edea, Cid and Ellone all saw different things.

Squall saw what could have been him, where his path ended had he not had Selphie to guide him. He saw where they would all end up: in a standard-issue casket, waiting to be cremated so that they could take their place in the Hall of Martyrs below the Garden.

Edea saw the fruits of her weakness. The children she had tried to protect, the children she had tried to kill, the children she had sent to become soldiers becoming victims, in the end.

Cid saw nothing but his own failure and the very questionable foundation atop which his life's work was based. Veterans or not, some of them weren't even 18 years old. The real problem, Cid saw once again, wasn't to survive. It was to live with it.

Seifer saw the world becoming strange, so strange that it might as well end very soon. The subversion of everything he knew to be true. One more step and up would be down, down would be left and right would be dead center.

Irvine saw what he walked away from, what he had thought he could erase by pretending nothing had happened. This wasn't something he could escape from. It had all finally caught up with him, and this time, he would have to face it.

Ellone saw where her lost brothers and sisters had ended up, where they would all end up, one day. She didn't know how to feel about that.

Rinoa saw the first thought she had upon seeing Squall and his team. Her first opinion of SeeD: intense. She remembered the second thought, a question: how could they afford to be so strong? She saw the third thought now, manifested – it came at a very steep price.

Quistis saw the culmination of the last six months. The ending of all things. She saw Zell, lying dead on the stage, his head dyed red with his own blood, a shell of the powerhouse he used to be. She saw herself, dead and ashes.

Selphie saw the end of the Second Sorceress War, because it hadn't ended with the fall of Ultimecia, and some battles, they had never won and had continued to fight. Not anymore. This was the end of the day.

There was now a tomorrow.

**2**

Squall's fingers, bare for a change, slithered into Selphie's palm as the casket was placed on the belt and, with the Chaplain's voice reciting passages from the Hyne's Bible in the background, Zell was put on the final path he would walk.

Selphie held Squall's hand and squeezed. She didn't know if he was looking for closeness or wanted to reassure her. She didn't much care. She simply marveled at how the void of Zell was forming in the flames behind the closed hatch... and how another void was being filled by a very simple gesture.

**3**

Zell's ashes were placed in a porcelain urn, SeeD logo on the front, his name and status as a veteran inscribed onto a plate. The Chaplain would then take it to the Hall of Martyrs, to his final resting place, among the heroes and soldiers, much like his grandfather, who had given their lives.

After the Chaplain's departure, those standing vigil found that they had little to say, and dispersed.

**4**

"Quistis, a word?" Squall said.

Standing in the long hallway leading to the crematorium, Quistis turned to him. Seifer lingered.

"Yes?" Quistis asked.

"Alone." Squall said, "Seifer, don't take this the wrong way. It's just that I need to talk to her in a General-to-Lieutenant way."

Seifer raised an eyebrow. Huh. _That's a bit mild-mannered of him, isn't it?_

"Sure."

Selphie, who was in Squall's arm, looked at him with anticipation. Squall simply kissed her on the top of her head and said;

"There'll be time for everything."

Selphie sighed. She stuck her hands in her pockets and walked away. Squall leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. He waited for the others to leave.

When they were alone, Squall spoke.

"It's about Seifer." He said.

"Squall, this is not-"

"He's going to enroll next term, isn't he?"

Quistis hesitated. Yes, but... what?

"Yes."

"He's going to need to take the added must courses. Plus, he didn't do so well on the actual combat, he will need to be re-trained. He's sub-par, Quistis, I'm sorry."

"That shouldn't be a problem, he can manage..."

"Which brings me to the other thing: he will not take any of your courses. Under any circumstance."

"But... I teach Field Magic 102 and Mid-Range Armed Combat 101, and they are both mandatory courses..."

"Quistis, you are the only one who wants Seifer here. If I put him in one of your classes, you'll lose your entire student body in ten seconds flat. Can you risk that?"

"No."

"I'll find a way around it." Squall said, "I swear."

**5**

They lingered.

"Rinoa's leaving." Quistis said.

"I know."

"And you're not going to..."

"Stop her? No. We just never... quite happened. Always something in the way. And when there wasn't, there was nothing there."

"I was talking about the practical problems."

"Oh, she won't know it, but I will be keeping very close tabs on her. I'm not about to let a rogue sorceress do what she pleases."

"Yeah, that'll be something."

Quistis laughed lightly, accompanied by Squall's smiling.

"Hm." Quistis said, "When all is said and done, I think we..."

She choked. She covered her mouth with one hand sobbed. Squall simply stood by, silent, and looked down the hall where the crematorium was.

"Quistis..."

Quistis slipped off her glasses and wiped her eyes, which did nothing to stop her tears.

"You know, the last thing he said to me was... 'don't do anything I wouldn't do.' Looking at this, _knowing _this, I... what am I supposed to do with this?"

Squall considered it.

"You carry on."

Quistis glared at him, confused. She sniffed and stopped crying.

"We're not lost, Quistis. We never were. We'll make it. Somehow, we'll make it, I know."

With a small smile, Squall stuck both hands in his pockets.

"But right now, I think we should mourn. To each his own."

**6**

Rinoa was informed by a very polite cadet that her luggage was on the hovercraft, and that they were waiting for her. Rinoa nodded, and was about to follow the cadet onto the ramp when she spotted a familiar figure.

"You go on, I'll be there in a sec." she said.

"Yes ma'am." The cadet replied and disappeared into the hovercraft.

Rinoa crossed her arms and half-smiled, half-amused, half-glad.

"Couldn't resist, could you?" she asked.

Squall smiled, the likes of which she hadn't actually seen before: confident, a bit tired, not happy, but content.

"How could I?" he said, "You put a spell on me."

Rinoa chuckled.

"Yeah, I remember. It doesn't seem to have worked, though."

"I'm here, aren't I?"

"Yeah... you are, aren't you?"

Squall cocked his head in the general direction of the hovercraft.

"Where to?"

"Timber. Where I belong."

"Ready to be a Princess again?"

"I think Veteran Princesses are called Queens, but, I'm not a hundred percent on that."

They stood, smiling.

"I'm gonna miss you." Rinoa said.

"I think we'll run into each other." He said, "It's inevitable. Y'know, you, Sorceress, me, SeeD."

"Ahh. Squall's sword will pierce my heart."

"Someday, maybe."

Rinoa flung her arms around Squall's neck and pulled him in. He responded by embracing her. The fading ghost of what once was still felt warmth between them.

"When that day comes..." Rinoa whispered, "...don't hesitate."

"I won't. I promise."

Squall drew back and held her for a moment longer, his mind frantically committing to memory everything that he had loved in the sight of her smiling.

_I'm finished._

Squall turned his back to the hovercraft and headed to the hangar. He didn't look back.


	20. Coda

"_**Estranged"**_

**Coda**

Squall came into the room and closed the door behind him. He sighed. This wasn't all he had imagined it would be. He couldn't feel the loss of his friend as much as he thought was appropriate. To him, it had taken that Zell's loss to find himself exactly where he had wanted to be: in the tomorrow, unburdened by the future.

He found Selphie on the couch, jacket slung on the armrest, that they had made their bed most nights, with a glass of whiskey in her hand. He didn't feel too thirsty, but wouldn't say no to a glass.

Squall sat down and saw that Selphie had already poured his glass. He took it and took a sip. It tasted moribund and sweet.

They didn't speak for a while. As they had done before, silently, attuned to one another's presence and motions, they drank. At some point between the silence and the end of the glass, they drank a sip in honor and memory of Zell.

Squall broke the silence, and when he spoke, he looked at the bottle, not her.

"I was lost." He said, "You guided me, you found me."

"What makes you think you were the only one?"

"How can you afford to be so strong..?"

Selphie turned and glared at him, full of indescribable emotion.

"I finally know, thanks to you, what comes next. I should have known all along, of course. If I had known sooner, maybe Zell would be alive today."

"So, what does come next?" Selphie asked, almost shirking from the question.

"Us." Squall said, "We come next."

Selphie bit her lip.

"I love you." She said, "I don't know what it means yet, but I love you. And, just so you know, there doesn't have to be a reason. Maybe I just love you because of you. Maybe I just love you because of me."

Squall looked at her then, looked into her bright green eyes.

"How can I thank you..?"

Selphie smiled.

"Tell me the secret that you never told a soul."

Squall didn't hesitate.

"During one of our victory parties in Esthar, President Loire drew me to the balcony and told me that he was my father."

Selphie's eyes widened.

"And I never told anybody this, but... when she left, Ellone left behind her comb. You know, the one she used to brush her hair every night? I snatched it from Matron's room where Sis had left it, and kept it behind the loose brick in my room. Every night, I would take it out, kiss it goodnight and wish for it to protect me in times of weakness. When I entered the Garden, I took the comb with me. It's still here, in my desk drawer. I haven't said goodnight in a good long while."

"Is this..."

"Laguna said that Raine, my mother, was the one regret he had, not that he had met, loved and married her, but that he couldn't be with her as much as she deserved."

"The comb belonged to Raine."

Squall nodded.

"It's the only thing I have of my mother."

Selphie ran her fingers through his hair. Her fingertips drew circles on his scalp. He smiled, content.

"I love you." She whispered.

"You are the one regret I have." He said, "I don't regret meeting you, fighting alongside you. I don't regret loving you. I regret not realizing it sooner, not having found the time to tell you everything."

Selphie pressed a finger on his lips and leaned in.

"We have all the time in the world." She whispered.


End file.
